Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn
by Hic iacet Mori
Summary: His brother meant the world to Sasuke, and that changes one morning when he finds a strange gift in the cemetery. When he finds the mysterious giver, his whole world changes and it becomes someone bright with shadows dancing in her wake. Sasufem!Naru
1. Watching the Sunset with Unseeing Eyes

**A/N: **Because for some reason I felt I ought to repost this.

* * *

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_The orange sun dips down, its flaming arms grasping as it slowly fades against the clouds. It is gone from your sight but it never truly dies—it rises on the other side, warm and bright, cheery as it waits for the time to return to your sky._

* * *

A month after his brother's death, Uchiha Sasuke was living.

His brother—they hardly saw each other but when they did, the years between them melted like shadows against the light, receding meekly into the crevices of a spotless mind. Neither distance nor time was consequential, and they simply became the quietly affectionate _nii-san_ and the silently loving _otouto—_they had their differences, their disagreements as they grew up together and apart, but they were all each other had and they took care of one another as much as they could.

Uchiha Itachi was a physically distant brother, unlike when Sasuke was younger and he could pout his way to a piggy-back ride. They, however, had developed a deeper connection that transcended physical boundaries when they grew up. It came to the point that Sasuke didn't mind if he didn't see his brother for months on end—Sasuke had grown up fiercely independent under Itachi's guiding hand, and he was no longer an insecure, worshipful child who craved the constant attention of his idol. As long as he knew that Itachi would appear on the doorsteps one day—and he did so, at least once a month—Sasuke believed all was well with the world.

He never really knew what his brother was up to, but it was enough that Itachi visited him from time to time—still quiet, still affectionate, still alive. They spent those days together in companionable silence, talking once the sun began to set as they drank the tea their mother used to fix for them, the dying rays of the sun bathing their wooden porch with a deep bronze sheen. Once a beam of light had touched its plank, Itachi would begin his questions—he would ask him about school, about friends, about goals, about carrying on in the business of living, and Sasuke would give short answers to each. Their words were precise, concise, Itachi's tone indifferent while Sasuke's was bored, yet his eyes would speak of contentment at having his nii-san's attention on him again.

He had always sought his brother's approval, affection, and this had never changed—Sasuke had only become more subtle about it and it wasn't a great necessity in his life anymore. Itachi had told him once that he must please himself first and foremost, and Sasuke had taken it to heart as he did all his brother's lessons. One of them was the value of silence over words, of listening over speaking—like Itachi, Sasuke had become a tacit young man. Fact remained his brother was more tacit than he was, but it was enough that they understood each other in their varying displays of silence. Years of brotherhood could speak so much without the constraints of words.

When his brother was done with his interrogation, he in turn would ask his own questions. Itachi would answer when he could, falling silent when he couldn't—Sasuke knew his brother would rather be mute than lie to him. He had come to depend on his brother for truth and his brother loved him too much to withhold it from him. Besides, they were rarely around each other. It would be useless to lie and Uchiha never lied—especially not to those they cared for the most.

They were never demonstrative, never vocal of their inner thoughts and feelings, but the truth in Itachi's visits and the truth in Sasuke's contentment were enough.

And then, three months ago, Itachi stopped visiting.

And then, a month ago, a man from the police station appeared on his doorsteps, breaking the news that _Uchiha Itachi, 25_, was caught in the middle of a gang war and died.

He didn't even know the man's name.

Standing over his brother's headstone, he wondered faintly if the man had given it in the first place. And then his mind blanked out, fading into formless thoughts, as he continued on the business of living. A wind whipped past and he shivered. He closed his eyes.

Inhaled.

Exhaled.

Lived.

It felt oddly hard and easy at the same time.

There were times that Sasuke barely felt he was alive. Life was too routine, too normal, too dull, that sometimes he thought a robot could take his place and no one would notice the difference. Sometimes he felt he was simply a ghost, watching the world turn through the eyes of a corpse, silently asking someone to cover his open grave. Sometimes he believed he was a puppet, living vicariously through his master with his simple ideals and simple goals, all artful shrouds of failed creations, failed dreams. Sometimes he thought he was walking in water, his world wrapped in monochrome silence, breathingbreathing_breathing_ as much air as he could before his lungs gave out, before he gave up, before he realized he was meant to walk on land—not _on_water, never _in _water—before he learned it was futile to attempt to walk on air—to reach the clouds, to touch the heavens and feel the _sun_, feel _life_—before he choked, before he died.

Sometimes, Sasuke didn't believe he was alive.

When Itachi died, Sasuke didn't believe it either.

He still didn't believe it one month later, his eyes unseeing as he stood over his brother's headstone, just as he had done everyday after classes ended. There were only three important places in the world by his own reckoning—the house, the school, and Itachi's side, and it was quite convenient that the most important place was now a permanent location. It was quite near too, the Uchiha Cemetery. At least he could go there everyday and feel alive.

Uchiha Cemetery was a block away from the house Itachi had bought for them three years ago. He hardly visited the vast land in the past, dropping by only during his parents' birthdays and death anniversary to offer candles, food, flowers, and prayers. He was a mere child when they passed away, and though he would like to imagine they loved him very much and that he loved them as much in return, it was Itachi who acted as his mother and father even when they were still alive. It was Itachi who loved him most, it was Itachi he loved the most.

And so, he visited Itachi everyday. He didn't offer candles, or food, or flowers, or prayers—Itachi didn't need them, he had always been self-sufficient, and Sasuke doubted that a move to a new location would change that. Even if it's a permanent location because his brother may be dead but he wasn't _really_ dead now, was he? It was too ridiculous to fathom, a dead Itachi. More so a ghost one. Just _no_. He didn't believe it. Too stupid and _Nii-san isn't stupid shut up shut up the sun is going down hush watch_.

Beside the white slab of marble, by Itachi's side, Sasuke sat and watched the sun set.

The sun was going down and it was peaceful, always so peaceful. As peaceful as the last round of green tea he and his brother had. As peaceful as the day they grappled for the last onigiri. As peaceful as the day they played shogi on the porch. As peaceful as the day a man appeared on his doorsteps, with a funny story about his brother caught in the middle of a deadly gang war. It was peaceful.

Itachi always made him feel at peace.

The sun had set and he stood up.

Sasuke felt nothing.

* * *

_Watch the sun set with unseeing eyes, and the darkness it leaves behind will not touch the ice you have become._


	2. Crawling Through the Patch of Light

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Shadows chase each other as you sleep, as you dream, as you grapple for light amidst the infinite darkness of the night. Take heart, close your eyes, morning would break soon—until then, believe, the moon is waiting with you._

* * *

A cabbage appeared on Itachi's headstone a month after his move.

Sasuke had woken up before sunrise, that day. Contrary to what most people thought, he enjoyed waking up early, though it was rare that he woke up before the sun, like now. The crispiness of the early morning air was always chilly and sharp—it made him more aware of the blood running through his veins, of his heart pumping unceasingly throughout his body, of his lungs swelling with clean air, of his nerves singing, of living, of being alive.

His body thrummed with life and it was an exhilarating feeling.

The world was silent save for the music of the larks, the early risers reminding him of silent gypsies stealing down the foggy paths on their way to freedom. The early morning colors were muted, not harsh or obscene, kind to eyes still hazy from the light shades of dreams.

This was the world on the edge of sunrise and Sasuke liked it.

When he woke up, the sun had yet to rise and he could feel a palpable excitement adding colors to his cheeks. The thought of climbing up flashed through his mind. Whenever he could, he liked to watch the sunrise from the sloping roof of his house—from there, he had a clear view of the sleeping town, of the mountains in the distance, of the sun slowly extending its arms in a yawning stretch as it climbed between the mountains in a burst of colors. It was fascinating, the way the horizon changed—it was the visible spectrum in motion, an explosion of vibrancy, a choir of hues. It was a burst of choruses to herald the dawn.

_If only Nii-san could enjoy it..._

Since their parents' death, Sasuke and Itachi had never watched the sunrise together. It wasn't a conscious choice at all—as years went by, his brother just slept in more and more, only perfectly awake by the time the sun was setting. Itachi had become the night owl to his morning lark—_morningale,_ as his brother deadpanned—and Sasuke asked once if he was insomniac. His brother had simply waved it off and ate his rook, and he had been distracted by the smirk on Itachi's face at the blatant cheating that he had to throw a dango stick and yell.

On a whim, he decided to watch the sunrise beside his brother. A scalding cup of chocolate—unsweetened as it should be—and he was soon by the coat racks, wrapping his brother's long coat over his dark blue shirt and sweatpants. He pocketed his keys and closed the door behind him, closing his eyes against the crisp dawn air. A deep breath and he exhaled, smiling a little, and then he made his way to the cemetery. There were no gypsies along the way as the fog curled around him so he skipped a little on the empty path, imagining how a gypsy might act. He settled to his slouch after a couple of skips, thinking perhaps he should lay off the book he was currently reading.

The short walk was a blur of half-formed images, real and imagined—he didn't really care on mornings like this because he felt the sun would rise on a child the same way it would on his dreams—and then he was pushing open the steel black gates with the crest of his family in the middle. He walked past dying trees, dead trees, trees still holding on to their dying leaves, until he reached the farthest corner of the cemetery were a lone tree remained proud with its colorful red leaves.

It was then that he paused, and rubbed his eyes. He blinked for good measure.

He could see it, a couple of feet away. An object sitting on his beloved brother's headstone, a round and green object that wasn't supposed to be there. It wasn't there yesterday when he came from school, and it wasn't there yesterday when he left for home either.

He reached the headstone, eyes steady. He waited for it to disappear the way the fog did.

It didn't.

His eyes—trained, alert—darted around, looking for hints to this oddity. Finding nothing immediately strange, he then turned his dark eyes on the vegetable.

Cabbage. Sasuke knew Itachi loved cabbages, and he was certain Itachi would fall madly in love with this one, or as mad as any Uchiha would allow himself to—in retrospect, Sasuke realized that his ancestors were notorious for their madness, and he winced at his brother madly in love that way before shaking off the thought.

The cabbage was a beautiful leafy green, round like the globe on his work table. It could pass for an enormous green rose fit for a giant. Upon further inspection, Sasuke realized that it had been sitting there for quite some time.

* * *

Drops of dew sparkled on the leafy vegetable, reflecting the rays of the rising sun.

Somehow, that he didn't see the cabbage after coming from school didn't surprise him. What surprised him, though, was the sadness that washed over him. Whoever felt sad over a missing cabbage?

His brother, perhaps, but that wasn't the point.

Deciding, he went to sleep early and woke up the same time he did the previous day. Passing through the ghosts of the quiet town and the cemetery, his eyes widened when he saw a cabbage on his brother's headstone once again. He felt a shiver run through him which he recognized faintly as excitement. Of all things to feel, he felt _excited_ with this mystery—

His life was really dull.

He realized it might just be a fluke, though. Perhaps someone was staying nearby, leaving a cabbage for some reason. Perhaps it wasn't meant for Itachi.

He was sure it wasn't almost two weeks later.

* * *

It was fast becoming an obsession.

The cabbage, it was a symbol. And a powerful one at that—or so Sasuke told himself. Even if it was a bloody ridiculous thought.

Whoever left the cabbage was close enough to know his brother's favorite food. Uchiha Itachi, as a rule, rarely showed any human inclinations outside of his interactions with his younger brother, and this included eating. He had seen it firsthand that time his brother attended a PTA meeting back when he was in middle school—Itachi had stayed on his seat for eight hours listening to parents and teachers rant at each other, not once shifting on his chair unless necessary. Not during the fifteen-minute break, the thirty-minute snack break with cartoony cupcakes and diluted punch, the next fifteen-minute break, the hour-long lunch break, and the last fifteen-minute break. His brother didn't eat anything, didn't stand up, didn't speak unless a teacher addressed him—and it was only because of Sasuke himself that Itachi was persuaded to eat and drink and go to the bathroom, and only when they were alone.

It boggled his young mind, then, but he had come to accept it.

Itachi wasn't one to show preference over anything—it was another human inclination and, like he told Sasuke once, could be a weakness used against him. His brother was so guarded around everyone else, quietly protective of him when they were in the company of people... he was his brother's weakness and it made Sasuke wonder, now. Would someone use him against his brother

Itachi mentioned once in passing that even something as simple as a photograph, if it was dearly loved, could be used against a person at the right place and the right time. Did his brother keep a photo of him? It sounded too sentimental for Itachi...

A light slap of wind on his cheek made him blink. He looked down again. The cabbage looked back with nonexistent eyes.

The thought that there could be someone out there who had been close enough to know how crazy Itachi was for cabbages...

Sasuke didn't know what to feel.

One thing he was certain of—he wanted to know who this person was.

* * *

From the amount of dewdrops the cabbage collected everyday, Sasuke surmised that the secret donor dropped by either around four or five in the morning. With that in mind, he went to bed earlier than usual to wake up in time to see his brother's mysterious acquaintance. He hadn't much to do anyway.

Acquaintance... He refused to call that person _friend_. Uchiha Itachi was too distant and detached from everyone else to put up with a friend, and as far as he was concerned, the only person who his brother could count as his friend was him, Sasuke.

It made him sad and relieved at the same time.

* * *

He woke up to dark clouds rolling on a gray night sky. Sasuke thought it was the perfect night to track a person, when the world was bathed in shadows and the only light around was from the reluctant glow of the moon hidden behind the clouds. With only a flashlight as his guide, Sasuke completed the ten-minute walk from his house to the Uchiha cemetery wrapped in a black trench coat over his black turtleneck sweater and black pants.

He felt like a cliché dressed in such colors for snooping—he can't help it, though, black was a common color in his closet.

He thought of scaling the imposing black steel gates, but a glance at its eleven-foot structure was enough to stamp down the asinine notion. He bypassed the massive gates instead—the hinges of the gate were rusty and he didn't want to risk anyone, most of all the cabbage bearer, hearing its whine—rounding the ivy-twined walls until he reached the edge of the east walls.

He looked down and, after a short search, located the hole in the wall conveniently covered by overgrown grasses he had found on a bored jaunt. With hardly a thought, he dropped on all fours and crawled forward, inwardly surprised that his lean frame could pass through. This thought abruptly died when he met resistance—his hip was stuck in the hole and he stared down, incredulous. He wondered how the hell it happened when his shoulders were broader, and then he remembered the cellphone, the batteries, and the length of rope inside coat pockets conveniently over his hips. Taking a deep breath, he gingerly twisted himself, cursing lowly with every pause, until he was facing the starless sky.

He spent a moment to admire the night, lying on his back. His reverie broke when a sliver of the moon peeked through the clouds, glaring at him for lazing. Briefly closing his eyes, he pushed himself until he was upright—he raised his flashlight and looked for the nearest part of the wall with the most cracks. Finding it seconds later, he curled his left fist and punched.

The hole significantly larger, he braced his hands behind him and pulled himself inward, grunting until he was completely inside. He stood up and absentmindedly patted himself down—his eyes took swift glances around and, finding nothing out of the ordinary, stealthily made his way to his brother's headstone.

He stopped. He glared.

A fresh head of cabbage gleamed white under his hand.

* * *

_Crawl past the shadows through the little patch of light, dance under the reflection of the hidden sun's smile._


	3. Stumbling on Secrets in Black and Gold

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_The moon weaves secrets with the subtile thread of shadows, its needle a point of rising and falling black against the day. The sun unravels, slowly, with the certainty of light, its rays a pair of scissors glinting gold against the night._

* * *

He would never forget that perfectly still night, that night when a flash of gold slashed the darkness before his eyes.

Against the shadows overcoming the encompassing night, against the darkness conquering the still-struggling light, an obstinate flame flickered bright among the land of dreamless sleepers. It was defiance in human form and it brought a strange feeling in his chest; it was undaunted, unyielding, this rebellion of one—he had always conformed, it was easier, even when he thought himself above those he associated himself with—and this simple act of standing bright in the dark, alone, only relying on the half-moon for light... it made Sasuke understand that man would always fight against nature while he lived, even if it's just as simple as daring to exist in the darkness in the farthest corner of a cemetery. It was always a struggle, living, and it would always be—to pause is to stumble, to stop is to die, and he would struggle like this person standing a distance before him.

Hidden behind the lone tree with its rustling red leaves, he fought for the right to breathe the same air the stranger did.

His eyes, grown accustomed to the dark, had to adjust to the sudden change he had stumbled into on his third night of sneaking. The stranger was a splash of light and colors, orange and golden and bronze and red, with black serving to vivify the brightness encompassing the person. He had never seen someone so bright yet comfortable in the absence of light at the same time—it was immediately incongruous to him and it gnawed at his mind, how light and darkness struggled in one person. How they seemed to be at peace for the moment. How it seemed false. Unreal.

From behind the tree, he watched her trace the words in the headstone with a long index finger, still stunned that it was a girl—a _girl!_—who was leaving those cabbages. A female hadn't been part of the equation—it was hard enough to think that a man would drop by a _cemetery_ in the dead of the night to leave a _cabbage_, of all things, but for it to be done by a _girl_? Did the _girl_ even understand what she was doing? Did she really _know _his brother?

And why the hell _cabbages_, of all things? Because Itachi _loved_ it?

In his shock, his unseeing eyes failed to see her stand up and leave.

* * *

She mesmerized him.

Like flame to a moth, or the spider to the fly. Or should it be the parlor to the fly?

He didn't like how he had implied himself an insect, but he was too mesmerized by her sight to bother too much with logic.

She was a shapeless mass of orange and black sweatsuit, an indefinable blur of gold and bronze hues. She was the river of life in the valley of the dead, and her presence washed him with muted electricity, with vibrant heat, with a light that shadows in even dreams couldn't defeat. It was strange, the way mere air _thrummed_ with her existence—it was stranger still to be so affected by someone else's presence in a terribly short span of time. He could feel her now, somewhat, before he even saw her, and it made his steps stealthier and faster so he could hide behind the tree to watch her.

And watch her he did. She was the opposite of his brother, of him. She was the personification of everything they never were. He could imagine her, beside Itachi, and the image was staggering. He could imagine her, beside him, and the vision was alive.

Opposites. He didn't believe in that saying before... But no. They were _opposites_, him and her, _his brother_ and her. So how could she know Itachi?

She was kneeling before his brother's headstone again. Today was the fourth time he had seen her and he had immediately become familiar with her routine. He would always find her standing with her back turned to him that he had grown to recognize the small red spiral on her back—behind her, beside her, flowed honey-yellow hair tied by scarlet ribbons on either side of her head. A few minutes of standing and she would kneel, skimming her long fingers over the words on the headstone at odd moments, and it would be close to twenty minutes before she stood up again. Then she would bend down and leave a cabbage on the headstone, and if Sasuke hadn't seen her do it right before his stunned eyes, she would _melt_ into the shadows, all light and colors and life, and vanish before his sight.

The past three days—or nights, to be more correct—he would open his mouth to stop her but words would get stuck in his throat. He still didn't know what to feel about her presence, in front of his brother's headstone and in his brother's life, and it was these that stopped him. He never acted without a plan—his brother had taught him not to act out of raging emotions, of strong impulses—and while his initial plan was to corner the mysterious person and demand who _he_ was, how _he_ knew his brother, what _he_ knew, something was stopping him from doing the same to _her_. And this, this he didn't understand.

Did it matter at all? Knowing who she was, what she was to his brother? There were some things he wasn't meant to know, there were secrets not meant to be revealed in a person's lifetime—maybe one of them was how she fit into the puzzle of Itachi's life. Sasuke had never seen her before and to him, she represented a part of his brother's life that had been hidden from him.

Perhaps he wasn't meant to learn it, that part that had always caused his brother to lapse into silence?

But things weren't learned unless actively studied, never found unless intentionally sought. Though he respected his brother's privacy, he admitted to being curious of what his brother hid from him. Something in him, his gut instincts, told him that these things were connected to that... gang war.

_Right. Gang war._

And maybe she would have answers, because more than a month since '_Itachi's death'—_he scoffed at the notion, at the idea that his brother would do a human inclination as to _die_ so pathetically—Sasuke still didn't believe that Uchiha Itachi would do something as idiotic as being caught between the crossfires of two rival street gangs. It was just too... bizarre, too absurd. This was his _brother_, his brother who jogged twenty miles during summer noons to_ relax_, his brother who trained against martial artists to _soothe_ his sore muscles, his brother who ate Sasuke's pride and dignity for breakfast to _tease_... This was _Uchiha Itachi_ with superlative skills in strategy and combat. This was _Uchiha Itachi_, the nearest to perfection man could ever hope to be—or so screeched by a host of people they didn't really know.

Just—_stupid. _It was a stupid way to die. Like getting-ran-over-by-a-bicycle-and-bleeding-to-death _stupid. _Too-stupid-to-believe _stupid._

How was he supposed to _believe_ it?

... But maybe, maybe, this girl knew what _really_ happened. Even if she didn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

_Tch. Would an idiot know anything?_

He frowned in thought. She left _cabbages_. On a _headstone_. In the _dead of the night_ in a _cemetery_. _Alone_. That didn't seem too sharp now, did it?

He blinked in surprise when she stood up, the change in her stance forcing him out of his thoughts. He knew she would place a new head of cabbage on the headstone and his mouth opened, determined to get her attention this time. He would approach her, convince her he wished her no harm, then glare her to submission until she answered all his questions.

She froze.

It took a second for him to realize that he had stepped on a twig.

And suddenly there was the cabbage and there was her melting in the shadows and there were his words to call her back dying on his lips.

* * *

He arrived the next night to find a cabbage already on the headstone.

A harsh slap of wind roused him from where he stood, twenty minutes later, staring at the vegetable in frustration and disbelief.

* * *

_Stumble in the dark and seek the light by your side—secrets kept in black shine gold in its time._


	4. Speaking to the Night

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Silvery, like the bubble song of soap, singing among the light swells of the river as they crash into the sea—they pile together, false words, suds floating in longing as they reach the air in vain. But her voice is not silver, not bubbly, not longing—it is not a mirror reflecting the illusions you can't leave._

* * *

He gritted his teeth. Not annoyed, not at all. Definitely _definitely_ not angry. Just—currently suffering extreme deficiency in positive thoughts and emotions.

Not needing the aid of any artificial light—he knew the path by heart now—Sasuke made his way to his brother's headstone, his steps erratic and heavier than normal. Not stomping, no. Definitely _definitely_ not sulking. Just—currently experiencing superfluity of—of weight, yeah.

Er, muscles.

He half-heartedly planned a new diet and regimen to tone his muscles. At least, this was taking his mind off... things. Irrational things. Idiotic things. Well, he read somewhere that cabbages are muscle builders... rich in iron and sulfur too, though red ones are more beneficial than green ones—

He slapped his forehead and sighed.

Three days—nights—and he had yet to see _her_ again. It was always the cabbage over the headstone with not a shadow of her in sight, and he wanted to punch himself for scaring her away. Why else would she start coming and leaving earlier than she used to, if he hadn't unintentionally driven her away? He just wanted answers. He doubted he could hurt her, _would _hurt her—unless she proved to be loud and aggravating on top of being an idiot.

It was just really... frustrating. No one had ever run away from him before. There hadn't been an occasion where he had caused someone to do so. He _did_ glare at his clingy female schoolmates, but that's because they were intruding on his space and cooing in his ears... At least, they've learned their lessons, if sighing from afar while undressing him with their eyes could be called that.

His footsteps, which had become dragging—whyever did he keep coming back anyway, if he didn't expect to see her again?—stopped in surprise when he reached the maple tree.

The headstone was bare.

He felt the beginnings of a smirk on his face. Hah, he was _earlier_! There's no way she wou—

The fine hair on his nape suddenly stood up.

He took a deep breath and slowly lifted his hands, palms open. He wanted to turn around but he didn't want to make the same mistake again.

"Who are you?" he asked softly. He didn't know his voice could sound so soft, or assuring. He just wanted to reach out to the bright shadow who haunted his brother's resting place. Find out who she was, why she did what she did. If she could assure him that his brother... his brother...

He knew she was a distance behind him but he could feel the hotness of her breath and the blandness in her strange husky voice. Like there was something lodged in her throat and no amount of coughing could make it go away.

"No one you should know."

His eyebrow twitched. No one told him who he should or shouldn't know.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. He blinked at the faint amusement in her tone—as if she had seen his reaction but it was impossible, she was behind him, unless she knew him well but that was impossible too—before her words caught up to him.

He wondered why the hell they were speaking in hushed tones when there was no one to bother with their engaging small talk. Regardless, he returned the question, his voice equally low, "What are _you_ doing here?"

She replied with silence. He scowled. He wanted to turn around so he could glare. "Do you know my brother?" he asked instead. It's what he was really interested in, after all.

The amusement abruptly vanished. He felt goosebumps rise on his skin.

"... And if I do?"

He swiftly turned around—irritated at her vague answers, her blank tone—only managing to grab the girl's wrist before the world abruptly spun and he found his face digging on the trunk. He wondered dazedly how it happened as instinct took over, but everything flew away when he felt her body pressing against him.

_Not fat_ was all he managed to think.

"Sneaking into a cemetery in the dead of the night won't help you in school," she said, her tone condescending. He struggled against her hold, mortified. How could a mere girl have him in her grasp? He fought to think of how to slip from her hold but his mind came up blank.

Anger covered his shame, his bewilderment.

"Release me."

He felt her hair tickling his skin as she shook her head. Her lips brushed against his ear. It was chapped with the wind, lush.

_Focus. Focus!_

"You should be in bed."

He shuddered. He covered it with a snappy retort, "I can sleep when I want to, _idiot._"

He could feel her bristle behind him. Despite his position, he smirked.

"Such a _bastard_, Uchiha Sasuke."

His head snapped up.

"Who are you and how do you know my name?"

And then, he was free.

And then, she was gone.

And then there was the cabbage, watching him sift through the shadows in vain.

* * *

To his surprise, he found her the next night kneeling before his brother's headstone at her usual hour. He was even more surprised when she stood up and addressed him, albeit with her back still turned to him.

Her voice floated to him, still husky yet lighter than yesterday. "You're kinda stubborn, ne?"

He stepped from behind the tree, his arms over his chest and his suspicious dark eyes assessing her. He could still feel the humiliation at how easily he had been trapped—like some helpless puppy held over the storm drain—and he wanted to get back at her. He wasn't supposed to be overcome that quickly, wasn't supposed to be overcome _at all_. It wasn't in the scheme of things.

Then there was his response to her proximity, something he wasn't ready to delve into yet. _One at a time_, he thought. Take things slow, one at a time.

His voice was low but there was no mistaking the underlying threat.

"Tell me who you are."

He stiffened when she moved, not even relaxing when all she did was unzip her jacket, the sound a shriek in the stillness. She withdrew the cabbage she would place on the headstone for the night. "It's not really the best for you, knowing me," she replied. She then stood up from her crouch, ready to leave.

He could be fast when he wanted to and it was with immense satisfaction when his hands caught her shoulders. He twisted her none too gently, telling himself it wasn't because he wanted to _finally_ see her face, and his scathing words died at her parted pink lips and her whiskered lean cheeks and her electric blue eyes alighted with surprise.

It was disconcerting and he didn't take confusion well.

"I'm sure we have better things to do than mooning at each other like idiots in a cemetery," she said lightly.

He really didn't take confusion well.

"Who are you?" he snapped. His hands fit perfectly on the roundness of her shoulders and he wasn't supposed to notice those things.

She smiled against his grip that had become punishing without his awareness. "Really, it's not a good idea for you to know me," she replied easily. "I'm not planning to do anything crazy, anyway. That is, crazier than what I'm doing right now."

She was frustrating. Frustrating him with her answers, her voice, her rounded shoulders—

"Why do you this?"

She shrugged, her smile still in place. His hands moved in time with the motion. "Well, I thought I'd want ramen every night, see, 'coz we can't be sure they have our favorite food over there, and I can't really give him ramen because he isn't much of a fan. Now I thought of giving chocolates but the first time I tried, I ended up eating the whole box and he's really possessive with them sweets anyway, sometimes eating five pieces a second, and I can't have him getting toothaches because we're not sure they have dentists there, ne? So I tried onigiri but the only konbu onigiri he wants is from another country and I'm not exactly friends with the owner after a prank that went too far. And well, cabbages are tolerable even if I hate veggies and anyway, Itachi and cabbages is a perfect match, don't you think?"

Her babble hardly made sense and he was feeling the beginnings of a headache coming. His hands left hers, though, when he heard his brother's name.

_Perfect match._

He was unprepared against the sting of Itachi's name on her lips.

"I don't plan on anything else," she said, taking over the silence that was too stifling for him, her voice softening, her tone assuring. He disliked it and he didn't know why. "A cabbage a day, that's all. You don't need to drop by at such an ungodly hour to watch me do it. I'm not going to ruin anything, I promise. I'd never do that to him."

She sounded so sincere, so solemn.

So sad...

"... Are you his friend?"

"You can say that," she replied, her words slow and deliberate. He didn't realize that he had pushed her until she stumbled back, her face hooded.

"I don't trust you," he hissed.

For a brief moment, she looked up, her eyes traveling to rest on the moon glowing above them. He felt an odd hatred for it.

"I'm not asking you to."

She vanished.

He realized, belatedly, that not once had she looked at him.

* * *

He ended going back every night, watching her as she performed her peculiar ritual. This time, however, he had taken to standing on her far left to at least see her profile because he realized quickly that watching her from behind the tree would just show him her back and she preferred to remain that way when she talked.

_Rude idiot._

"You're losing your edge in Calculus, y'know," she said, her voice a husky breath of smoke, of shadow, in the moonlit night. "You'd need to ace all your subjects to get into the college you want."

Coldness washed over him. He knew he shouldn't be surprised anymore but he couldn't get over his amazement, and annoyance, at how much she seemed to know about him. He was at an unfair disadvantage—she wouldn't even tell him her name, the selfish moron.

"Still can't figure out how you'd use that load of bull in fighting crime, though," she muttered, almost to herself. "Genius criminals are overrated and they're not as many as TV shows make people think. And they don't go around killing others because someone didn't know what _derivatives_ are."

It was also the first time she had spoken before him, though his words were often demands of her name in his cold, accusing voice. Then the previous night—

_"Until I know your name, I'll call you whichever I want. Dobe."_

"So yeah, teme," she went on—him scowling at the insult—"skipping on your schoolwork isn't nice."

"Are you spying on me?" he asked, his voice the soft hiss of a serpent eyeing its prey. She shrugged and his fists curled on his side. He despised her shrugs. Her shoulders annoyed him.

"Maybe."

Great. Not only was this girl a crazy idiot who liked to leave cabbages in headstones, she was a spying moron too.

"Baka," he growled.

"Yarou," she returned almost amiably. "Don't throw your life away."

He stiffened. "Who said anything about throwing my life away?"

She glanced to where he stood but he could feel her eyes lingering on the emptiness behind him. "Then at least don't throw your precious sleeping hours away."

His lips tightened.

"Besides," she added, her tone curious, "why d'you keep coming back here anyway? I'm sure he thinks your afternoon visits are enough. I know you know I'm not gonna try anything."

He looked away even though she wasn't even looking at him. He told himself he simply wanted to know more about his brother but deep down, he didn't understand why he kept coming back at all. She was right—he knew she wouldn't do anything.

He closed his eyes, deciding. He should have asked this before.

"How did you meet my brother?"

Her eyes on the shadow behind him were suddenly intense and he felt it chilling everything else around him. Including him.

"I'd answer when you stop coming in this hour," she replied after a long pause. His head snapped up, dark eyes irritated. She uttered some other words, some sounding suspiciously like _"persistent nerd_."

"Pardon?" he asked, voice icy.

"Off to bed, teme. Don't make things any harder."

His brows creased. They're repeating themselves now. "I sleep when I must. Now what do you—"

He was speaking into air.

He threw a filthy glare at the cabbage, at the headstone, at the shadows—even at the moon for good measure. He was displeased and he wanted the world to know it, and his world in the past days had shriveled into these things.

A yawn made its way up his throat. He scowled at the echoes of her words in his mind.

* * *

_Speak to the night and hear its answering voice—rough, like the sands of a ruthless hourglass; low, like the hope of a desperate man; uncaring, like the soul of a creature born to kill. She speaks in silence and it is the tongue from where she reveals._


	5. Reaching for Falling Sands

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Behind closed eyes shine a multitude of stars—some yellow, some red, some gray like dreams forever lost. They are the stars in your head, the stars in your eyes, the stars you will fight for the right to dream of. But they are stars meant to fall, imperfect against the night—they are broken stars with no promise of sleep and dreams within. They pass through the air and crumble into sand, fragments of stars that can only make you weep._

* * *

Sasuke's eyes flew open.

He sat up on his bed, silky blue sheets pooling around his waist as shadows danced upon his milky-white skin. His right hand rubbed on the sleep cobwebs in his eyes before gently sliding down his face, his left hand curling unconsciously upon his lap as he sifted through the wordless thoughts and formless images among the incessant stream of his consciousness. It took him less a second to realize he was awake, lesser to wonder how it happened—why a second ago he was asleep in his warm bed and the next his eyes were open and sensations were assaulting him. Ideas were flying in his brain too swiftly for his consciousness to catch but the certainty niggling at the back of his mind forced him to full consciousness in half a minute.

He climbed down and made his way to his window, his footfalls silenced by his dark blue carpeting. The heavy blue drapes were tied on both sides of the window, and he could clearly see the old maple tree directly across his window. The full moon appeared to perch over its highest branch like a lazy white feline deigning to shower the world with her presence, regal and striking, demanding of attention and forever beyond the grasp of those who longed to claim her. He could see the shadows of the leaves, flickering in time with the waltz of the foliage, the night breeze rolling past to a silent music. He could see a smattering of stars and know this was eternity in her glorious dark form.

It was peaceful, this night, something he had never noticed before—he always slept early and was dead to the world throughout this nocturnal calm. Experiencing this for the first time, he could feel a strange curl of gratitude in his chest at being awake to witness it tonight.

Another breeze and his unseeing eyes watched the shadows dance once more. A minute or so of watching and, finding nothing strange, he turned to go back. As much as he had enjoyed the brief interlude, he needed to be early to school tomorrow. He also had to catch up on the sleep he had lost because of _her._

Wind flew past once more and he paused, his body half-turned. His mind quickly replayed what he saw mere seconds ago.

A shadow wasn't moving.

He nonchalantly made his way to his right, as if going back to bed, only to creep to the edge and observe. Another breeze. Another unmoving shadow.

Someone was watching him.

He rolled this thought over in his mind, hearing its silent echoes, tasting its secret flavor. He wondered idly why it didn't alarm him.

Before he returned to bed, he thought he saw a flash of a smile hidden within the shadows.

* * *

Sleep wouldn't come.

He had been sitting on his bed, staring into nothingness, his mind curiously blank as his hands clenched and unclenched on his dark blue sheets. A vacant glance to the glowing red numbers on his radio clock showed it was five minutes to ten.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palms. He had lost interest in the book that once held him spellbound on those past days ago he couldn't recall. He didn't even remember the plot anymore, and the book had easily slid out of his lax fingers the way its story had from his mind. Instead, his thoughts had drifted to the _Fourier Series_ and why he disliked Calculus very much, before snorting at himself in disgust and lying on his back to stare at his ceiling, his books piled beside him, his eyes dry and ready for a sprinkling of dust from the Sandman.

Minutes later—or was it hours?—and he remained awake, frustrated. That inconsiderate anthropomorphic personification. Sasuke was ready to throttle the ass if he appeared, fondness for Death or not. Why wouldn't the bastard make him sleep?

... Excellent. Now he was imagining his favorite characters as real. What next? Would he _love_ his _velveteen_ throw-pillow until it was _Real_?

Just why the hell couldn't he _sleep?_

He was done with his school work—school rarely gave assignments but everyone was expected to read the chapters to be discussed on the next day. He had read his Calculus chapters twice to be sure, telling himself he only did so because the topics were a bit tolerable. He wasn't failing the subject, was in fact receiving top marks, but his bias against it made him slip sometimes.

He had a simple dinner after and then he watched a bit of TV, lingering on the news and not-drooling at the promise of an upcoming book from a favorite author. He then took his last cup of dark chocolate for the day and retired for the night, raring to finish the book he bought some time ago. He was all set for an ordinary night of reading until his eyes grew heavy and the words lead him into sleep—it was practically the highlight of his day, falling asleep in the arms of his imagination. His dreams were pleasant though unfortunately, he couldn't remember them when he woke up.

But he couldn't sleep. Couldn't couldn't coul—

His nerves prickled. He could feel it now, for some reason. The presence he had become familiar with in a short span of time.

He slowly stood up and crept his way to the window, still confoundingly wide-awake. There was the maple tree directly across his window, a precise seven meters—_22.97 feet_, his mind automatically calculated—away from his window, with a thick white wall separating the tree and his house. He could see nothing but glowing leaves and lurking shadows against the backdrop of night, but he knew that person was there. He could _sense_ her.

He made his way back to bed and lay down, staring up the ceiling once again with his limbs sprawled around him. What was she doing here? Had she really been _spying_ on him? Was that why she knew a lot about him?

But why would she spy on _him?_

Her presence was consuming his mind. He hadn't seen her but he knew she was there, was sure that it was she who was watching from the tree outside his house. It was always there, whenever she was around—the muted electricity, the vibrant heat, the lazy wash of light and darkness and the shadows in between that alternately soothed and alarmed him. Her presence tugged him in opposite extremes and he was feeling it right now, the way he couldn't decide whether he should be righteously furious with her for intruding on his privacy or oddly plea—

Something inexplicable twisted in his stomach. He decided not to think about it.

He lay awake for a time, just waiting, just feeling, ignoring the passage of time and his eyes that were finally losing their battle against sleep. He allowed his eyes to rest for a moment before an insistent tug on his consciousness brought him out of his half-asleep state a swift moment later.

Her presence was gone.

He glanced at the clock. _4:07 am._

He bit his bottom lip, feeling an uncharacteristic urge to yell.

Long after the sun had risen, Sasuke had yet to sleep.

* * *

"I know you're there."

His voice was a low whisper in the night, his eyes fixed on where he felt she was hiding. He ignored the chill as another breeze brushed past the open window to glide around him. He only wanted answers and she had yet to deliver what she had promised the last time in the cemetery. He wasn't curious as to why she was there. Wasn't concerned that she was losing sleep over him. It was her choice to stay on the tree and freeze playing _I spy_ like the idiot she was. But...

His breath unconsciously hitched when a booted foot stepped away from the shadows. This was followed by an orange pant leg and another booted foot, orange making way for black before abruptly stopping under a bulky orange and black jacket. Her face remained hidden in the darkness but he could see golden strands of hair whipping up with every roll of the breeze.

He shivered. He didn't like the shadows on her features.

He opened his mouth. He meant to demand the answer to his question days ago but something else came out of his lips without permission.

"Come in."

He couldn't be sure but he thought she had taken a step back in surprise. He himself was stunned at what he had said and he meant to take it back, but something forced his mouth open and words tumbled out again before he could stop himself.

"Or do idiots need an _Idiots Welcome _sign?"

What the hell was _wrong_ with him? It was bad enough that he had taken to insulting her even in his thoughts—he didn't care much for the rest of the world to form opinions, good or bad—that he had been _thinking_ about her in the first place; but now, his mouth had disconnected from his brain, the treacherous organ, and words were escaping his lips like blood from a busted artery!

He was about to berate himself for the inane metaphor when a sudden movement halted his thoughts.

A blur of orange and black jumped from branch to branch until it landed on the highest, a specter with glowing stars for eyes, and half a second later it was hovering in the emptiness of the night sky. It was a visual shock, gold hair and bronze skin and trails of red lace conquering the darkness before abruptly plummeting into the abyss, objects of tragedy against the inevitability of man's swift descent. A strangled yell died on his lips as nimble feet landed on the concrete wall separating him from the outside world, and then his mouth dropped open as the silhouette landed on a crouch and pushed forward into another powerful jump.

His heart pounded wildly, his breath caught in his throat, he watched her sail through the air in a perfect arc, feline grace and foxy smile, her hands catching on his window ledge and her body pushing upward in one fluid move, and she was suddenly in his face, grinning down at him with splinters of blue skies caught in her eyes.

Her even breath brushed against his cheeks but he didn't really mind because he couldn't breathe and she was breathing for the both of them just fine.

"... You letting me in now?"

He wordlessly stepped aside and she promptly slid in, settling into the corner of his room farthest from his window, from him. She sat down and her eyes drifted shut, comfortable in her assumed birthright of his private sanctuary, leaving him to look down at her in stunned bewilderment even as his mind struggled to discern if he was dreaming or awake. Her eyes were closed but watching against his unseeing ones, her form hidden by the shadows despite the brightness of her clothes, the brightness of the light her presence ignited in him. She was there but not there, like wisps of dreams before wakening, like warm sand in his hands. She was his Dream with sands in her fingers, and she watched him behind bright eyes from the shadows of his mind.

He went to bed in a daze, still reeling from the ghost of her breath on his skin, the faint scent of jasmines in the wake of her smile. He swiftly fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of sands and shadows and splinters of smiles.

An insistent pull hours later woke him up. The coldness in the room told him she was gone.

* * *

_Reach out a hand and catch the falling sands—the stars may not be perfect and they may sift through your hands, but in a fraction of eternity you had the right to call them mine._


	6. Believing in a Drop of Sun

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_There you stand in stillness at the edge of a drop, gazing at the dark vastness where infinity begins. Do you stay and wait, or do you turn and walk away? Do you step a few distance and spread your arms wide, believing in a power you have yet to acquire? Do you run on faith and jump on trust, hoping at a shot on what you couldn't see?_

* * *

She sat across him, her sun-yellow hair blowing shadows around her face, her eyes narrowed in thoughtful blue at a point only she could see. He looked back, dark eyes blank, none of his thoughts manifesting on his equally blank face. Had he not his dark eyes and the flush of color that made his lips, he could have been the moon, so cold and dead. He could have been the satellite and no one would have questioned why.

As it was, he was far from a big chunk of rock in space—Sasuke was a pragmatist spun of goals and dreams, alive and real with cold logic and hot emotions. He had a tight grasp of himself, tighter than the world in general, as if he had to hold himself together to not fall apart—other times, he simply did not know what to feel, and his face would come up blank as he struggled within him for a proper response. Feelings like doubt, fear, surprise, joy, frustration... he wasn't used to_ feeling_, feeling for _so long_, feeling for someone _not _his brother, feeling a range of them _all at once_. The most he had felt for others were indifference and irritation, and they didn't exactly induce visible reactions from him.

Right now, to the world, Uchiha Sasuke was a figure of marble, smooth and cool. Right now, to _his_ world, Uchiha Sasuke was simply confused.

And he really was. He looked at her right now, frustrated and annoyed both at her and himself, crouching so casually on his 15-foot wall and staring at the emptiness separating her from his window. It confused him so much that he couldn't answer her question, but it confused him more because he was so certain of his own answer.

"Ne, teme?" she prodded. Her husky voice floated clearly to his ears.

He turned away, feeling disgustingly _shy_, of all things, as he muttered his answer, "I prefer talking over shouting."

"Wha?"

He felt his eyebrow begin to twitch. That was his face, trying to form an expression and trying to stop it at the same time. It was hard, sometimes, to contain all emotions, especially when they were too many to handle at the moment. It was harder still when you were used to hiding it because you automatically fight against any outward expression.

"I didn't kinda hear you," she said in an almost-shout, "I mean, yeah, I'm kinda—Iunno, _touched?_ —that you invited me in yesterday even if you're being a bastard about it, but why? You slept on me, see. And well—" He watched her cup her chin, eyes closing before one popped open in a curious glance, "I didn't take you for the friendly neighbor type. I coulda been a thief or a serial killer for all you know, teme."

His fists clenched upon his window sill. She would really have him say it, would she?

_"Na, dobe, I don't know myself but I just trust your idiotic self. I also listen to the whispers of my heart and believe in myself so much I don't have to do anything else to succeed. And my tears? They can heal everyone. I can bring the dead back to life when I cry. I also moonlight as a carebear and I crap hearts on a good day."_

Because really, he just _trusted_ her. There was no reason behind it: his heart—he inwardly cringed—just did. He had always trusted his instincts and his instincts—yes, _that_ sounded better, _instincts—_trusted her. And he couldn't tell her because she would just ask a slew of embarrassing questions he wasn't ready to answer and he wasn't the one who's supposed to answer questions anyway.

"I said," he repeated, voice louder, his face set in a scowl to show his dislike for repeating himself, to show it wasn't a great deal, inviting her inside his room yesterday without a second thought, inviting her _now, _"I prefer _talking_ over _shouting_."

She snorted, clearly finding his answer unbelievable. He didn't care. It wasn't a lie, anyway. He _did_ prefer talking over shouting, though he much preferred listening over talking. And really, how would they talk if she was on the tree, or on the wall, and he was inside his room leaning on an open window? Not only was it stupid, it was like an impromptu rendition of some cheesy love story between histrionic prepubescents whose headstones will declare _Death by Hormones_ to the world in a matter of minutes.

He took a second to clear his mind off the disturbing image before frowning in response. She rolled her eyes and placed her palms on the wall, her shoulders tense, rising, a predator preparing to catch his prey. Then she was sailing through the air, her body stretched over the darkness, and then she was on his ledge, pushing herself up before jumping down with the satisfaction of a cat fresh from a night of prowling.

She landed gracefully on the carpet and turned to him. He quickly snapped his mouth shut. She grinned, amused by the reaction she had caught. "So ye—_Fuck!_"

He looked down, smirking. She lifted her head with a low groan, her forehead a bit red. She threw him a filthy glare and lifted the book that had tripped her, chucking it to his ankle with deadly accuracy. Sasuke almost stumbled backward but caught himself at the last moment, glaring back before smirking again at her figure on the floor. She growled and immediately sat up, sticking her tongue out and sulking.

"Usuratonkachi," he taunted. He almost chuckled at her answering growl.

"Bakayarou," she retorted, arms crossed over her chest. She stood up and made her way to the corner she had claimed yesterday. His hand shot up to stop her before his senses quickly caught with him and he curled it instead. This got her attention, however, and she paused, her body angled to him as she waited patiently.

It was time to get to business and this time, unlike last night, he was ready.

"Tell me."

She walked past him after a pause and settled across his bed, her face hidden under strands of spun rays of light. He sat on the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together over his chin, his white features stark against the tendrils of blue shadows tousled by the night breeze.

"We met at work," she replied. He turned this answer over in his head.

"You don't seem older than me," he said. A white grin and he stared.

"Is that your way of giving a compliment?" she asked, giggling like a child. He knew he should be put off by this show of immaturity that so many of the girls around him liked to do, but he found himself not minding it at all. Besides, she had done worse than that already.

He snorted, covering up the strange urge to smile. "Hardly," he said. "I'm merely stating a fact, which implies I don't believe you."

She smirked. "Well, teme, I'm a few months younger than you. And you believing or not? I really don't care."

His eyes narrowed, irritation flaring within him anew. Did she have to know his birthday too? She was _really_ annoying. "If you're almost the same age as me—as you say—then you should be in school, not work." Never mind that he didn't really know the nature of his brother's work. It was enough for him to know that it was Itachi, and upright Itachi would never involve himself in anything illegal.

"Funny you'd say that," she said. Her voice sounded odd in his ears. "I think it's a—anou, _novel_ idea. School."

Was it wistful? Or patronizing?

"You've never been to school?" he asked, his monotone concealing his disbelief.

She snorted, her eyes alive with dark humor. "I've been to one, alright," she said. She shook her head, as if ridding herself of an unwanted thought, and smiled once again. "But if you meant like the studying shit you guys do in school, that I've never been to."

He was at a loss. The only people he knew who never went to school were those too poor to afford the cost of education and too far beyond hope to be helped by the government. To think she was one of these people...

He felt something pinch his chest.

"Oi, don't look like that," she said sharply. Her head turned away but he could see her hands clenching into fists. "I don't want your pity. Not attending one is a personal choice. Means I can go but I chose not to."

He frowned. "Why?"

She leaned her head on the wall, eyes sliding down to regard the pillow in his bed. "You ask a lot of stuff, teme," she drawled. "You don't hear me asking. And you really should be sleeping, I can hear your brain yawning."

"You seem to know a whole lot about me already," he said coldly. Why the hell wouldn't she shut up about the sleeping? Did he look like a zombie or other such monsters sorely in need of sleep?

"Not true," she said, mild and unmindful of his chilly expression. "For example, I didn't know you like to curl on your right side until weeks ago."

He felt himself flush at the words, inwardly thanking the darkness for hiding the sudden change in his color. He had known she was watching him, but the thought that she was watching him _in his sleep _had never been driven home into his mind until she had said it outright.

She wasn't done, though. Not according to her overly innocent demeanor, the sly she-devil.

"I also didn't know you murmur in your sleep until last night."

Merciless heat enveloped his body.

"I didn't know anyone knowing your sleeping habits embarrasses you until now," she concluded with a teasing smile.

"Shut up," he growled, grasping on anger to cover his embarrassment. Her husky laughter, ringing in the air as she threw her head back, brought an unwanted blush on his cheeks. His eyes roved the visible smoothness of her neck without his consent before snapping to the wall on her left, cheeks burning hotter.

"Since when?" he asked instead, inwardly wincing at the unevenness of his voice. He expected her to tease him about it—and he would have let her, with minimal damage, just to know how long she had been spying on him—but she simply stopped laughing, a blank cheer now on her unsmiling face.

"A month since he—" she paused and took a deep breath, "A month since."

He swallowed. His mind still couldn't grasp the reality of his brother's death. _No, not death_, he said to himself. _Just move. Nii-san's somewhere else fooling everyone but me._

"Why?"

She stood up, the shadows melting away from her. He felt his breath getting shorter and shorter with each step she took, until she was in front of him, crouching, hesitant hands landing on his shoulders.

It was a pleasant tingle of warmth, her hands over his shoulders. He found himself regretting it, throwing on a dark blue shirt in an attempt to make her comfortable around him. He shouldn't have changed his sleeping habit for her.

... Not that he cared for her comfort, no.

"Go to sleep."

He allowed her to gently push him down, his blood roaring in his ears, his pulse speeding up, his body oddly pliant under the touch of her hands. He couldn't move and he found himself not wanting to—she leaned over him, his sheets in her hands, and it was all he could do to bury his nose into her neck and inhale the jasmines he could only smell when she was this close to him.

Soon she was tucking him under his sheets, his half-lidded eyes looking up to hers that never looked back. As her hands drew away, he captured her left wrist. She stilled.

"What's your name?" he murmured.

She shook her head, liquid gold spilling on her shoulders. _Warm like the sun_, he thought faintly, his mind giving him false memories of pale fingers running through their strands. Warm, like the pulse beating steadily on her wrist that brought him a strange disappointment.

"Night, teme," she whispered.

He slept.

He woke up at four to the emptiness she left behind.

* * *

"Why are you here?" he asked.

She raised her head to his direction. After declining his awkward offer of a pillow—_"Think fast, moron"_—and throwing it to her face, annoying him when she caught it easily before throwing it back with the force of a baseball pitcher, she had retreated into a watchful silence, a silence he immensely disliked. She wasn't made for silence, he thought, and this certainty fueled his dislike for it. She had many forms of silence for such a loud character, and this silence, where her eyes watched but never saw, where her ears heard but never listened, where she waited but never stayed—

He disliked it almost as much as her silence the first time he saw her in the cemetery.

It was almost a need for him, breaking it. And break it he did, asking another question he knew she would answer. He learned quickly that she answered his questions providing they were nothing personal about her that could pinpoint her identity.

She was still a selfish moron, withholding her name. Well, he had a lot of names for her now.

"I want to make sure you're here," she replied.

An eyebrow rose. The same eyebrow began to twitch after a second of thought. Who did she think she was, his mother?

"It's not really safe at night, you know," she went on. "I mean, sure, Konoha's a peaceful little town but even it has its bad sides. They just pop out at night, when everyone's s'posed to be asleep."

"And you know this because you're one of them?" he asked, tone sarcastic.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm one of them sexy bad sides," she said, sticking her tongue out. "But seriously, teme. I'm making sure you're staying put 'coz you're not safe out there."

His brows furrowed at her words. She had used _you're_ instead of _it's—_which meant she was pertaining only to him.

"Are you saying," he said slowly, "that someone is after me?"

She waved a hand, snorting. "What'd they want from a nerd? _Glasses_?"

His back straightened, his eyes narrow. So he wore reading glasses sometimes. So what? "Your enlightened opinion is warmly accepted," he said coolly. He frowned when she coughed—he knew what he heard and he just heard her cough '_geek,_' thrice. Immature moron.

"I am _not_ a geek," he retorted.

Her eyes were wide and innocent, as if she hadn't spoken at all. Her smile belied everything, though. "Sure," she said, approving. "You're a nerd. You're not a geek, nono_no_. Go you nerd, huh?"

He glared in annoyance. "Geeks and nerds _are_ different," he huffed. "Geeks are extremely obsessed in a specific area and its accompanying sub-areas to the point of acquiring a high level of expertise on said area, whereas a nerd is interested in the intellectual pursuit of knowledge over a vast area. Hence, I am not a geek."

She laughed. "You just proved yourself."

"Idiot."

She shrugged, chuckling, and his eyes immediately honed on her shoulders. He looked away when he realized he was staring. "Wow, you babble too. And well, you're a book geek, so same-diff, ne? Oh, and a tomato geek too. So it doesn't really matter, teme."

He rolled his eyes. It was better than strangling her, and did she have to know his fondness for tomatoes, too?

_Tch._

Dark eyes widened a fraction. How did they end up in this conversation?

"Stop changing the topic, dobe," he said, annoyed that he had allowed himself to be distracted, annoyed that he wanted to laugh. He shouldn't be wanting to do it, laugh with her, "Is someone after me?"

She broke into a smile that sent shivers down his spine.

"Not when I'm here."

* * *

_Believe in what you could and stare the darkness down—see a drop of sun between the threads of infinity, and see yourself fall until all you can do is fly._


	7. Listening to a Broken Music

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Silence plays music to entice truth to speak—in return truth shatters silence into irretrievable pieces. Then silence falls with crystal shards of truth, lodging in the hearts of the admirers of its music and hurting wherever it lands. This is the price silence pays, the price a truth claims—it hurts who breaks the silence, and it hurts who hear its truth._

* * *

"It's obvious, don't you think?" she commented, eyes askance. He should have expected the answer—it was obvious, like she said. But to accept it?

There were many things in the world that he knew. He knew that the ice caps are melting. He knew that the Loch Ness monster is a hoax. He knew that justice is rarely served. It didn't mean he had to accept everything he knew, though. Just as how obvious it was, the answer to his question—like he had known all along—didn't mean he was ready to accept it. Not yet. Not now. Maybe not ever.

It isn't truth that men fear but the realization it brings.

_"How do you know me?"_

Sasuke knew her in an intellectual level—she was the cabbage girl who haunted his brother's headstone, who had watched him for more than a month now through his window without his knowledge, who was currently sitting on the darkest corner of his room talking about how obvious the answer was. She was the blonde idiot who liked to hide in the shadows who seemed to be worshiped by the darkness, the blue-eyed moron who had humiliated him with how easily she had held him against the tree, who had made him wonder everytime how she could stand or sit so loud and bright for one second and _vanish_ on the next right before his eyes, even when he _knew_ she was still there, was still standing or sitting, only silent and dark now and concealed from his sight, his mind. It was like knowing he had a right hand but not _seeing_ it, even when he was waving it right before his very eyes, even when he was slapping himself with it—it was one of the strangest things he had ever seen her do, one of the many things only he had seen her do.

Like darting from the tree to his wall to his window like some computer game character—it still amazed him whenever she did that. One time he had told her to just use his door, but she simply flashed her now familiar cheeky grin and answered, _"But it's more awesome when I go through your window. Like a ninja!"_ before exclaiming that _"Parkour's got nothing on me"_ because she was _so much more_ than any _traceur_ the whole world over. She then proceeded to jump from his window and climb back up by _running on his wall_, but not before running halfway up and landing to terra firma with a series of butterfly kicks.

Bragging dumbass. Show-off.

She could run and jump so swiftly, so effortlessly, graceful and untouchable, then grin so smugly at his hidden awe and envy before tripping on one of his books lying on the floor in a classic blonde moment. She would then jump up, suddenly human, within his reach, cursing and pouting as much as she could while accusing him of ruining her _dynamic entry. _She would then flit around him, talking about random things like any person he would normally turn away from did, and then her voice would get lower and lower until she was silence, until she was life fading away, until she was the shadow in the corner, until she was darkness.

_"It's called effacing, bastard."_

Until she became the phantom he never really knew.

And it was this knowledge that made him ask. Maybe from her answer, he could know her a bit more—and know how she knew him too. He was selfish, he wanted to learn more.

How did she know him? Simple. It was obvious, like she said, like he knew all along—

His brother told her about him.

But it wasn't so simple, really. Because while he could intellectually accept it, he couldn't do so deep within him. His brother rarely trusted—sometimes, he wondered how far their parents' death affected Itachi, if hardly trusting anyone was one of its effects—but he himself barely trusted people. So for his brother to trust this girl enough to speak of him? There was no way, Sasuke knew, no way in heaven, in hell, or anywhere in between Uchiha Itachi would speak of his younger brother unless he trusted the person implicitly, completely.

And for her to receive this level of trust...

Unless she was lying—and she had yet to give him a reason for him to distrust her—this revelation was amazing in its own way. It made him wonder, though. What, exactly, was her relationship with his brother?

"You're his favorite topic," she said through the silence that had stretched between them, a silence stretching through the ocean of years. Her voice was in an almost whisper, with nary a pitch or inflection—as if she was reciting a sonnet in the blank canvas of her voice, carefully hiding all traces of feelings to get a feel for those of the recipient of her words.

"Otouto is on the top of his class once again... He loves tomatoes but he loves onigiri with _okaka_ best. He probably doesn't remember it anymore but okaa-san used to make it for him... Otou-san would have been very proud that he decided to become a detective—Otouto is the best person to follow in his footsteps... He managed to sneak up on me. He's not quite up to my level yet but he's becoming faster, more certain. I see his potential to surpass me. He is very stealthy now, in fact. He will need it someday... Otouto had found a new confectionery by the seaside. The _pâtisserie_ beside it has exceptional _crème brûlée_. He was grimacing after I forced him to take a bite. He hates sweets..."

His eyes stung with her every word. With every parting of her lips, he could hear his brother speak. It wasn't supposed to happen.

"He used to be so shy and passive, and adorable as well... I poke him in the forehead so he would look into my eyes, because he has nothing to hide and he must be proud of himself. He is an Uchiha, my brother, and he must hold his head high... I wish to see who he becomes but I know he will turn out fine. He is, after all, my dear otouto... I believe you two will be very good friends. Perhaps, someday..."

His body shook. With every lift of her lips, he could see his brother smile. It wasn't supposed to be like that.

"If something happens to me, please watch over him. He is sometimes so involved in his dreams he forgets to live..."

His heart ached. With every breath from her lips, he could see his brother breathe. It wasn't supposed to end.

"And," she said, appearing in front of him, kneeling before him with an unbelievably tender expression that wrenched at his heart, his soul, "I promised I will."

It wasn't supposed to hurt.

_The world is breaking_, he thought. Breaking right before his eyes as the words sank in, as the truth swept into him. Itachi was dead. He wasn't coming back. There would be no more fond smirks, no more teasing glances, no more gentle reminders, no more affectionate pokes to his forehead. There would be no more days when he'd open the door to be surprised by his brother who never seemed to age at all. There would be no more sunsets they could watch together as they sip their tea, no more nights where they could talk and bask in each other's presence until one or both of them fell asleep on the couch, on the porch, on the bed, on the tub, on the table, on the shogi board, on the roof. There would be no more fights over the last onigiri, no more sneers at the pathetic heroes in their favorite drama, no more rude spoilers to ruin each other's books. He would never hear the quiet laughter anymore. Never feel the annoying soft brush on his hair. Never see the silent gaze that expressed love far better than any words could.

His brother was gone.

_Gone._

He was breaking. Breaking from the soundless sobs tearing his body apart.

_Never coming back._

He would never see Itachi ever again.

"Teme..."

That night, Uchiha Sasuke finally opened his eyes, black and red and dry, breaking in the arms of a stranger with broken blue skies in her eyes.

* * *

_Listen as silence plays, hear its broken music. Truth comes in its wake and breaks every heart with its voice._


	8. Embracing Memories in White

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_In a paper lie stories waiting to be told, just as in a heart lie memories waiting to be recalled—in every object is a touch waiting to be claimed, in every room a scent waiting to be breathed in. They are pieces of a life now beyond mortal grasp, sharp and raw and wounding and they, like colors, fade against the waters of time._

* * *

He buried himself deeper in his book, graceless in his bed, stubbornly ignoring the presence by the shadows. It had been some days since _that night_ and Sasuke was all manners of awkward that he didn't know what to do whenever she was around. He didn't know what to do with himself, with her—there were too many... too many _feelings, _too many she evoked whenever he saw her, sensed her, and they were all the harder to bear when night had fallen, when shadows came out to play with his mind.

They were easier to bear, the sadness, the despair, the shock, in daylight. Everything appeared the same, as if his brother hadn't died at all, as if he hadn't finally admitted to himself that his brother was dead. How could it be real when the sky remained blue? How could it be true when the sun remained high up in the sky? Even the geese were still flying in their familiar formation for the winter, the way trees continued to shed their leaves in preparation for the long season of cold. There were still the familiar strangers, there were still the daily faces and places he saw and went to. Nothing in the world had changed at all.

Yet as the day progressed, Sasuke began to see it—the shadows of his brother on the mundane, the ordinary. He would look outside the window in his classroom and see his brother looking back, a half-smile on his face with his forgotten bento in hand. He would open a book and trace the words of his brother's ghostly writing, a brief reminder of his turn to do the laundry for the week in elegant script. He would pass by a candy shop on his way home and pause, his brother standing beside him, nose pressed to the window like a child eagerly awaiting the arrival of snow. And then, cycling his way up to their house, _his_ house, he could feel his brother beside him, riding another bicycle, quietly enjoying the last of the afternoon sun and the wind with the hints of night running through their hair.

Itachi was everywhere the way he had never been but Sasuke would give anything, anything in his power, to have his brother back with him—rarely there, hardly visible, seldom around, but alive alive _alive_.

At odd moments he would feel hot anger spilling through his veins, furious at his brother for daring to die and leave him, truly alone now, in an empty house in a world suddenly devoid of red. Sometimes he felt empty, bereft of emotions and wishing to wake up, cursing life because he was awake, eyes wide and dry, and cursing himself for not knowing what to do. And then he would feel a sharp stab of grief and he would wait for tears to come, longing for the promised relief, but nothing would come and he would feel it more, the emptiness inside him, and all he could let out were air, bitter air, carrying hints of salty tears he couldn't physically shed.

And she would find him, hunched by his bed, shuddering with every broken gasps and choked sobs he tried to hide behind a pillow, a book, a door. And he would ignore her, wounds still too fresh, humiliated at being seen in such a way, at being too weak, at insulting his brother with the absence of his tears, angry because he couldn't grieve well, because she had caused him to feel this way, because her shadow was entwined with that of his brother, because there was no red anymore, only the white of ghosts in his head. Had she not said anything, he would have—he would have—

_Damn..._

He would have remained blind, merrily making his way in a world carved of delusions and dreams, stained with cheerless colors and shallow smiles.

He owed her so much, this stranger, for forcing him to see the truth, the folly of his falsehood. He wanted to thank her for so many reasons—for forcing him to accept the truth, for showing him that he remained important to his brother despite the secrecy of some aspects of his life, for staying with him, for offering her silent comfort, for being there when he had nothing left. For letting him let go and not making him feel less of a man over it.

However, days later, he still felt awkward around her. Logically, he knew he shouldn't feel that way—he may be an Uchiha but he was still human, and it wasn't wrong to grieve over a loss, especially a loss as great as his brother. But he had never allowed anyone, even Itachi, to see him so painfully vulnerable before. No one had seen him in such a way, completely different, his face a ravaged mask of raw and silent grief. He had never been so bare before and it gnawed in his mind, this knowledge, whenever she appeared.

If only he could ignore her, _completely _ignore her... Since _that night_, he had become more aware of her presence it was almost a physical touch.

Maybe if she wasn't watching him—

He abruptly stood up, his newest book tumbling down his bed, and left his room. He returned minutes later with a mug of hot milk and made his way to where she sat, stopping in front of her. She slowly stood up, curious, and he pushed the mug to her hands. He himself wasn't very fond of milk but he knew it could induce anyone to sleep. His brother... His brother had sworn to it.

He turned back, confident at its anticipated effect, and paused when he heard a breaking sound.

Sasuke looked back. He blinked at the mess of broken porcelain and spilt milk on his carpet, watching as the carpet easily absorbed the hot white liquid. He then noticed something else dripping on the milk.

_Red._

"You're bleeding," he commented, voice scratchy. He had been yelling in the cemetery earlier that afternoon.

_White._

He was hypnotized by the redness of the blood against the milk.

The blonde head snapped up, as if suddenly broken from a trance. She smiled, sheepish, as she extracted an orange handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her hand. A cut ran diagonally across her right palm, blood oozing out of the wound.

"Un."

He went to his desk for his first aid kit. He wondered faintly how the mug broke—he thought it shouldn't have because his carpet was thick and soft, and it would have absorbed enough of the force of impact to ensure the mug wouldn't break. Also, she shouldn't be bleeding because she wasn't touching any piece of the broken porcelain.

After rummaging on his drawers, he scooped out the white box. He returned to see the carpet cleaned off the shards, with his nightly visitor returning to her corner after depositing everything in his trash can. The milk and blood on his dark blue carpet could wait.

"Sorry for the mug. And the carpet," she said, reaching for the kit. He lifted the white box out of her reach, ordering her with his eyes to sit down. He raised an eyebrow when she simply sighed and obeyed.

He gently held her hand and inspected the cut. It was deeper than he had thought. When he looked closer, he could see more cuts on her palm.

"Idiot," he muttered. He could feel a strange alarm at the back of his mind, though. The thought he didn't want to entertain reared itself at the forefront of his mind.

Did she break the mug on purpose?

He poured antiseptic on a cotton ball, ignoring the shaking of her hand. He pretended he didn't see how her body jerked, as if ravaged by a ghost haunting her body. He told himself it didn't matter—the rough softness of her palm, the heat from her fingers, the shadows on her face. She probably just felt... felt as awkward as he did.

It couldn't be because of something else, right?

* * *

Three nights later and it was sharper now, the awkwardness. He was ready to stab himself with a pencil to make it go away.

He cleared his throat for the nth time. An annoyed huff from the shadows overrode his embarrassment and he snapped. He was tired of it. Uchiha were never made to be awkward. "Do you have to be in my room?" he asked without thinking.

She bolted up, stark against the shadows—he had to blink at the sudden onslaught of colors. "Well, teme, if you stop opening your window, I'd stop misinterpreting." She swiftly made her way to the window, raising a foot on the ledge. "So sorry to be bothering, your ass-ness."

"Wait!" he shouted. The blonde did pause but she didn't turn around. He faltered. He didn't mean it to come out that way. He just wanted her to—to not watch him because she had seen him break down and everything was different and awkward and he didn't know how to act around her anymore and she was going on like nothing had happened and it pissed him off that she didn't seem to be so affected or awkward the way he was and damn, he's just so tired, so damned tired...

He deflated. "I mean... do you have to see me to—" he swallowed thickly, feeling his face flame up, "w-watch over me?"

She did turn around this time, regarding the pillow behind him with a thoughtful look. _Look at me!_ he wanted to shout. _Not the damn pillow, not the book or the bed! _"The hell's wrong with you, bastard? I know it's kinda humiliating to have a girl watching over you and shit but that's kinda sexist, don't you think?"

He hadn't even gotten around to asking what she really meant, about someone not coming after him while she was here, but he had more pressing concerns. Like why the hell he was making a mountain out of a molehill.

She cocked her head. "Now about seeing you... I guess not really. I don't see much of you from the tree, anyway, but I can, I dunno, sense you inside?" She shrugged. "That's what matters to me, anyway. That you're here in your room at night?"

He nodded as his heart sank. He felt disappointed. "Hn."

She laughed but it sounded hollow to his ears—his eyes had seen how she flinched. "Soooo, is that it? You're bothered that someone sees you sleep?" She nodded, not waiting for an answer. "The tree it is."

"YoucanstayIhaveanotherroom."

She frowned, trying to make sense of the rush of words. A skeptical eyebrow. "So uh, you'd make me stay in another room?"

He turned away, a scowl covering the faint hue in his cheeks. He really didn't mind it, her watching him—it was emasculating, having a girl a few months younger than him literally looking after him, but he had come to... come to expect it, even like it. After what he had said, though, he couldn't retract his words without explaining himself. So he had done the next best thing—offer her a place where he was still near her.

Besides, he was actually concerned—he had yet to catch her sleeping at night. He had tried staying up late a few times but he always ended up sleeping earlier than her, unused to being awake late at night, and maybe she slept after him but he couldn't be so sure. What he was sure of, though, was that she was always gone by the strike of four.

"Why?"

He felt heat burning on his ears. "You need sleep," he replied, hating this shyness he was suddenly feeling. The hell was wrong with him? His tongue felt so strange, like it was knotting itself with every word he said. There wasn't anything particularly embarrassing with what he was saying, was there? "I would have offered this bed but I'm sure you won't be as comfortable." _Beside me_, he added silently, and he felt warmth flare up on his cheeks. He almost slapped himself at his weirdness.

She waved a hand. "Thanks for the generous offer, teme, but I sleep during the day so it's cool."

He bit the inside of his cheek, feeling unaccountably put off by her swift disregard. She didn't even think about it, the irritating idiot.

"I insist."

He watched her glance outside and then, shaking her head, made her way to him. He turned to his left, his guest on his heels, and opened the door.

Across his room was another room, a room he hadn't been into for quite some time now. He swallowed the sudden heat blocking his throat, and blinked away the burning in his eyes as he twisted the doorknob. The door quietly swung open.

His legs suddenly felt weak and he clutched on the door jamb, an acute sorrow stabbing him in the heart as a familiar scent embraced him.

_He's gone._

He took a shuddering breath.

_He's not coming back._

He found his face burrowed in the crook of her neck, smelling jasmines and hoping everything was a dream. He wondered why she smelled of the flowers Itachi used to bring to their parents. _Attachment_, it meant in the flower language. _Divine hope,_ a symbol in religious offerings in India. _I promise you_, a pledge of mutual love among the Filipinos. Used against _depression _in aroma therapy, used to attract _spiritual love,_ used by the likes of Cleopatra and Louis XVI. Dubbed _moonshine in the garden_, said to penetrate the deepest layers of the soul and opens emotions. Only releases its fragrance at night, long after the sun had set, sweet and soothing like her warmth against the coldness seeping in his body, his soul.

It ached, ached his heart in a good way. The white of the flower against the black of the night. It was her.

_Would you like it, Nii-san? Jasmines on your grave?_

As his breath evened out, Sasuke wondered why jasmines looked like the stars in the sky and the shine in her blue eyes.

* * *

_Embrace all the colors for as long as you could, for just as a touch cools, a scent fades, and a memory is forgotten, so does the story of a life end the way it had begun—white._


	9. Breathing in the Scent in the Air

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_It was such a thoughtless act, breathing, that you forget its importance until someone breathes his last. You stand next to him, gazing at his shell, taking an unconscious deep breath in hopes of capturing more of his life now lost to him. You close your eyes, inhaling air he used to breathe, air you once shared, and time stands still as you hold your breath, as you hold the last air you would ever share, as you hold him for the last time in your lungs, in your chest._

* * *

He growled lowly, annoyed, as he delivered a vicious uppercut on a bearded moron, his growl getting louder when he caught an incoming wrist and used it to propel a bald tattooed idiot to him for a direct punch to the face. He was tired from school, from walking from school because his bicycle had a flat tire, from walking uphill wheeling a bicycle with a flat tire from school. It was late, he was hungry, and he was in no damned mood to be surrounded by six different human incarnations of stupidity intent on milking him out of his last yen, of all damned things.

He had tried to surrender peacefully—it had been ingrained in him by his instructor, his brother, to avoid confrontation as much as possible. Just because he knew martial arts didn't mean he had to engage. It was just money, after all, material, essentially worthless—there was no need to waste his life over an object that allowed itself to be passed from one person to another. He find it inconceivable to lay down his life for something treacherous and fickle.

But then, the retard with the cowlick decided he wanted Sasuke's bicycle, too. He pointed out, as politely as he could, that his bicycle had a flat tire. When that didn't work, he tried _argumentum ad misericordiam—_it was _special_, a _gift from his brother _who had _recently passed away_, could they _please_ not take it away from him? It galled him, having to stoop to that low, so much so that when cowlick-retard grabbed his bicycle and the imbecile smelling of onions called him a _pansy pretty flower boy_, all intention of "_I (do not want to) come in peace"_ flew away and he shoved his foot at onion-imbecile's fetid orifice dubbed mouth.

Sasuke now called him toothless onion-imbecile. The utter idiot.

Then the scrawny midget took out a switchblade and all of the frustrations of the past days, the past months, spilled into his veins like lava rushing from a volcano on a ruthless assault against humanity. With a sinister light in his eyes, he grabbed the hand toting the switchblade and used it to nick the pimply-faced asshole in a pimpled cheek because the latter thought it was funny to kick his bicycle. He then pushed said scrawny midget to said asshole, yelling _"Suck pus!"_ in his head as he delivered a side kick on cowlick-retard.

He was rarely rational when pissed.

He found it morbidly amusing when one by one, they took out so-called weapons from their pockets. He felt like a hero in one of their shows, his and Itachi's, surrounded by incompetent waterbags wielding arsenals of inanity, except this was a real—and serious—situation, and he was currently sporting a cut on his hand from bearded moron's lucky stab. Tch.

Sasuke just wanted to go home and sleep the day away.

As one, all six muggers attacked. He thought it was immature, the way they yelled. What were they, the stock high school jocks ganging up on the stock geek? And whoever screamed _"Charge!" _in this day and age?

He parried a kick and knocked out a butterfly knife with a well-timed chop, kneed someone in the groin and smirked in satisfaction at the high-pitched chipmunk-esque squeal that he heard. He grabbed someone by the nape and banged the person's head to the wall, using the same person as a shield against another bearing down on him with a steel bat. He was holding himself pretty well, for someone facing six men, when someone managed to grab his arms from behind and painfully forced his hands to his back. He twisted as much as he could, snarling as the five idiots stood before him, grinning. Cowlick-retard, who he assumed to be the leader, looked especially happy with his steel bat, twirling it like a baton, of all the badass things he could do.

Damn. _Not good_. The fact that it was six against one from the start wasn't good already, but now _he couldn't move._

Then suddenly, the man behind him was gone and all five men in front of him were gaping. Sasuke didn't think to look as someone appeared beside him—he knew this presence and he also knew it shouldn't be there with him, but he decided not to dwell on it as he eyed the five remaining muggers now glaring at him, them, with death in their eyes.

For a moment, nothing moved. And then, the stillness was shattered with curses and yells.

_Stop with the "Charge!" already, dammit!_

They moved well together, he realized, as if they had been doing this for a long time. She bent backward, capturing the idiot's head between her legs and throwing said idiot to the wall. As she kipped up, he swerved around for a roundhouse kick to the moron behind her, punching said moron for good measure in the flabby gut with a barrage of fists. She proceeded with a headbutt to the retard behind him and a sidekick on the same retard's stomach, and then he delivered a flurry of palm strikes on the second to the last imbecile standing just because.

Huh. So it _was_ powerful.

Sasuke turned around when he heard a groan. She was holding cowlick-retard by the short hairs on his nape, her eyes dark with the promise of slow pain. His body, high with adrenaline, shook lightly against her slow smile.

"Listen here, teme," she said cheerily. With a movement so fast he didn't see it, Sasuke found her holding the leader by the throat against the wall of the alley, her grip punishing—he could almost see how little the amount of air the mugger could breathe in. Cowlick-retard struggled against her, throwing punches she didn't seem to notice, stopping all of a sudden when her face drew closer until they were a breath away from each other.

He frowned and stepped forward. Pure fear was written in the man's face, along with something like—something like—

"No one," she continued, emphasizing each word with a squeeze, "_no one_ preys on _mine_." Her mouth landed on his ear. "Got that?"

_Recognition?_

Sasuke bristled. The hell she was doing, threatening a moron like he was some _princess_ in need to be protected against morons? And _mine_?

_Mine?_

... And his heart was racing with _annoyance_. Unadulterated _annoyance._

"Because," she added, her free hand snaking down, lazy. His eyes widened in shock when the hand harshly grabbed the now whimpering man's crotch, "if I see even a hair of his messed with, I will _hunt you down_ and you will pee _blood_ through your _ass._"

The _hell_? Why was she _grabbing_ some idiot's crotch and not grabbing hi—_Where the fuck did that come from?_

"Yarou, let's go!"

He looked up, cheeks painted red, at her silhouette waving at him with impatience. He blinked when he realized he was alone in the alley, all six men gone, and gently picked up his bicycle, coming after the annoying blonde idiot who had just helped him fight. He inwardly slapped his forehead as he walked beside her. Damn. She helped him fight. How humiliating was _that?_

He paused, stunned. She could actually _fight?_

"Why are you here?" he demanded.

"You weren't home," was the easy answer. The voice quickly took a cold edge. "Did you think I was kidding when I said it's not safe here at night? You're lucky they're just six amateurs, bastard."

Sasuke glared. "I didn't ask for your help."

"Who said I was helping? Who'd want to help a stuck-up ingrate like you?"

He bristled at the jab, clenching his jaws. So he had been ungracious with her help. He didn't ask for it! He was fine, he was holding up well against those idiots. He could have overcome all of them even when she hadn't come.

He grunted, grudgingly conceding defeat and expressing his gratitude. He knew it was pathetic but he had lost so much already to this girl, his pride being the latest victim, and he didn't think he could handle giving anything anymore. She seemed to understand, though, because she settled with his bicycle between them, whistling a random tune, pretending not to see the small pot of jasmines in his bicycle basket.

It was silent until he broke it with a clearing of this throat, "Why did you say it, _mine_?"

She stopped whistling, blinking at him. "... I did?" She seemed to think back to her words as his face grew steadily warmer. Damn, why did he had to ask that?

"Never mind," he said abruptly. He ignored her yells of protest as he walked ahead, the scent of jasmines in his basket, in her, wrapping around him with a silent promise that she would be right behind him for as long as she had to.

It felt less lonely when he reached home minutes later, her shadow behind his.

* * *

He wondered why he was standing in front of the door.

He couldn't sleep, that much was apparent, and it was after an hour's brooding that he finally admitted to himself that he couldn't sleep because she _wasn't_ watching him. It had been a few days since he had offered her his brother's room, since he had come to take an even longer time to fall asleep—and it frustrated him, how quickly he had gotten used to her, to her presence in his room. It had just been more than a month since he met her and he still didn't know much about her, so what was he doing, really, trusting a _stranger_ _inside his house?_

So she was his brother's friend, or at least someone close enough to Itachi, but that wasn't reason enough, right? So why wasn't he kicking her out, or slapping her with a restraining order? Why was he standing in front of the door that separated her from him, wanting—wanting—

Wanting what?

He huffed, annoyed at him, at her. What was she doing to him? He didn't feel awkward anymore but what was she doing to him?

With a quiet sigh, he slowly opened the door, careful not to make a sound. He paused, waiting for her to speak up, but there was nothing but silence. His heart skipped a beat and he abruptly shook his head. There's no way she had left—he could still feel her presence, could still feel its effects overpowering the effects of stepping inside his brother's room. She's here.

His eyes traveled the length of the room, the absence of his brother making him more acute of his presence. This had always been Itachi's room—his personality, his style, even the faint scent of his conditioner permeated every inch of the room. He still remembered that day clearly, when Itachi bought a bottle of conditioner home—he had received a serious lecture from his brother about the menace of daily shampoos and the absolute necessity of using a conditioner at least twice a week. Their hair were almost perfect, Itachi had said gravely, and they only required minimum treatment. Since then, Sasuke had followed his brother's advice and discovered Itachi was correct—as usual—except he preferred green tea scent because it calmed him. Itachi stuck with chamomile and he had come to associate this scent with his brother, and it was the faint scent of chamomile that was weaving threads of Itachi's ghost in this room right now.

He took a deep breath, his eyes drifting shut. It was smell, perhaps, that was the cruelest among the senses—he could close his eyes, cover his ears, shy from a touch, refuse to taste, but stopping himself from smelling would be stopping himself from breathing.

He opened his eyes, still inhaling the scent. It was purely his brother, the way this room was purely Itachi.

His brother's room was like his own except for the colors. Where he preferred a dark blue and white color combination—as manifested in his blue curtains, dark blue wallpapers and carpeting, white bed sheet and blue pillows and blankets—this room had a red and black theme. Across the door was a full-length closet, on its right and to the wall a shelf of books and an office desk. A sleek black laptop rested atop the desk, beside which stood a series of picture frames. Across the desk was an empty bed with silk black sheets and red pillows, beside it a bureau. To the bed's left was a red divan, and to its right was an open window framed by translucent red curtains fluttering with the wind.

Directly below the window, touched by moonshine and starlight, was her.

Something seized in his throat. His dark eyes drank in her sight, pupils dilating to see as much of her as he could—he had never seen her without the shadows before, and if he had been mesmerized before, he was downright entranced. She wasn't beautiful—her cheeks were lean but faintly scarred, her nose was slightly crooked, her lashes were neither long nor thick, and her face wasn't heart-shaped or oval-shaped or anything remotely feminine. Her jaws were quite angular and he knew she was stubborn, her lips too wide and he knew she was meant to smile, her eyes set apart and he knew she had seen more of the world than he had ever had. She was so damned imperfect, so strange, so unreal, and her questionable attire wrought of atrocious colors and textures didn't help her a bit. But—

The wind blew. The curtains fluttered around her, casting dancing red lights over her sunshine-yellow hair as jasmines teased the edges of his senses.

—she was so gorgeous and he had never been drawn to anyone in his whole life.

He found his hand inches over her face and he wondered at the contrast of their skin. It was sickening, it was dazzling, it was snow over honey and he was melting and thinking that it was meant to be. What _it_ was was something he didn't want to think about right now—what mattered was this girl before him who was everything he wasn't, this girl who lit up the shadows with her secret smile.

And then blue sparks burst into his eyes and he had lost the ability to breathe, an arm wound tightly around his neck and a firm softness burning hot on his back. It took him a dazed second to realize he was flushed against her body, that a blade was held against his neck, that his heart was beating too fast too loud too much it was all he could hear, that she was _holding_ him, that he was bathing in moonshine and starlight and jasmines and he was snow melting with honey and it was warm. So, so warm.

She was all he could feel and he wanted—he wanted—

He felt her start behind him and she abruptly let go, the image of shards of blue glass imprinted in his mind. He felt a keen sense of loss at the distance she put between them, at the arm swiftly releasing him from the confines of her body.

Freedom had never felt so painful.

"Don't ever do that again," she said, her voice low. She groaned behind him and he felt a jolt in his spine. "I could've hurt you, you fucking bastard!"

He forced himself to move, to face her. He caught a glint of silver on his periphery. He woke up at its smile.

"You carry a knife," he intoned. He felt her eyes slide past him with a curious blue glance.

"It's a Swiss knife, nothing fancy," she pointed out. Then, she sighed. "What're you doing here?"

Beneath his dark hair, his eyes slowly widened.

"Well?"

"I couldn't sleep," he blurted out. His eyes grew round at what he just said. Damn, he didn't mean to say that!

He was surprised when she nodded—he could feel her gaze soften and something squirmed in his chest, something that wanted to swell, to explode. "What's on your mind?"

He considered her for a moment before replying honestly, "You are."

She hummed. "Go on."

He took a deep breath and exhaled. He felt oddly let down at her response. "You won't tell me your name. Your part in my... brother's life. What you do, where you live, why you're here every night..." He shook his head. "I don't know you at all."

He was holding his breath, waiting for her answer. It was taking a long time and he was beginning to feel dizzy. He couldn't smell anything.

"Anou..." he saw her close her eyes and breathe deeply. He knew he would hear truth the moment he had been honest himself, "He and I are partners at work, teme. We go on missions, sometimes dangerous ones. And I'm here... not just 'coz of my promise, but because it's my latest mission."

She turned away. "It's not an accident," she murmured. He felt his blood freeze in his veins.

A chill gripped his heart at her next words.

"They're after you."

* * *

_Breathe in as much of his scent as you could, as much of his presence permeating your air—he lingers through the scent he had when he lived, and he lives through the scent he left when he died._


	10. Accepting the Touches of Truth

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Darkness hides in shadows behind enlightened eyes—it conceals truth in every blink and lulls the mind with false light. But the heart that can be blinded can touch far beyond the night—it is the soul that sees, not the eyes, the soul that chooses bitter truth over lies. For as much as lies could be seen, heard, as much as lies are believed, worshiped, it is only the truth that can touch and be touched, and this is infinitely sweeter than any story a lie could weave._

* * *

Murdered. His brother was_ murdered._

His breath came out harsh, fast. He couldn't believe it. Itachi allegedly _dying_ from a gang war was already hard to fathom, but _murdered_? It was damned inconceivable, so bloody unbelievable. _Murder_ happens in movies. In books. In TV. Not in real life and _not_ in _his _life.

And yet he could feel it, the icy fingers of bitter truth. They had been clutching at his chest, squeezing his heart until it ached so much he felt _nothing_. His brother, Uchiha Itachi, 25, was _murdered_. _Itachi was **murdered** _and_ he couldn't feel **anything**._

The words kept running in his head, voices within repeating them with varying tones and varying pitches, his mind attempting to see which would make the truth _seep_ into his heart. Yet even as he tried to make sense of what he just learned, something angry clawed in the edges of his mind, something ominous and feral and wild, something dark and seductive that threatened to consume him.

His soul screamed for _revenge_.

Sasuke didn't know what to do, could only hear whispers, shrieks. He could see nothing but darkness. Could see nothing but the closed white coffin of his brother because he refused to see Itachi _lying_ in a glorified box, because he refused to accept Itachi was _dead_, because he refused to see Itachi beyond his reach _forever_. He couldn't see anything and it was—

He tried to breathe deeply. There was a speck of light in this darkness and she was here, with him. He would deal with this later, when he was ready to think, ready to decide on a course of action. There were more pressing concerns right now, like the fact that his body was screaming.

Screaming for _air._

He swallowed, his breath still uneven. She had him in a tight hold once against and he wondered faintly why he kept doing this to himself, even as his mind whispered the answer in the same breath. He knew how she would respond, knew she hated being snuck upon, but did he have to make it a contest of sorts, see how much of her he could touch before she stopped him with a headlock? If he could, at all?

He didn't understand why but his heart screamed for her skin and he never liked lying to himself, even when he swallowed denials for as much as he had to. Truth rarely comforts, he had learned, and it was the security of lies that helped him sleep at night.

But the truth of her skin against his made him want to wrap himself in it—

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she growled as she released him, pushing him backward with an annoyed scowl. He knew he was staring but he couldn't help it, couldn't help the response she evoked in him. She was so gorgeous by the gossamer ribbons of the moon, her hair a wild tumbling pair of white-gold waterfalls, her eyes silver-blue oceans of anger rolling past where he stood. If there ever was an angel of fury, he thought, with lightning for eyes and thunder for words, it would have been her.

... Did he just think that?

"_What, teme?_"

"Why aren't you in bed?" he asked calmly. Why did she insist on dozing on the floor when there was a perfectly serviceable bed nearby? He wanted her in bed, comfortable. In bed with hi—

_Hn. There are nine square root days in each century._

He caught her flinch and he immediately understood. He almost sighed. "He wouldn't mind, dobe," he said softly, and he knew he was telling the truth. His brows furrowed, perplexed, when she shook her head in response.

"No, you don't understand," she said, suddenly appearing like a lost child in his eyes. "I—I just can't."

He stared. He was analyzing her response in his head and he came up blank.

... Perhaps it was because of something tender stirring in his chest, something that made him want to put his arms aro—

"Elaborate."

She raised a hand to her face, seemingly frustrated. "I just really can't, 'kay? What's it to you?"

_Because it looks uncomfortable for you._ _Because I want you to feel safe enough to be in bed, asleep._ He hurriedly pinned a _stupid dobe_ at the end, inwardly shaken at his thoughts—they weren't supposed to feel true. "You should be in bed, not the floor," he intoned. When she made to protest, his body moved on its own and he swiftly grabbed her wrist, pulling her.

His fingers burned from where he touched her, reaching his chest, making him shudder against the numbing ice slowly melting within him, shiver against something deliriously hot overwhelming the cold. His heartbeat sped up and he felt lightheaded, as if he had just won something after an arduous race, as if he had won something ultimately precious and longed for.

He squeezed his eyes shut.

_What. the. hell. is. wrong. with. me._

She was struggling and he had to admit it was close to impossible to force her to do something she so obviously didn't want to do, but he was equally stubborn and with his frustration at how she was acting like an idiot choosing to endure the cold floor—yes, carpeted, but still colder—when there was a warm bed nearby, at how she refused to look at him, at how he _still _didn't know her, at how he could feel heat burn behind his eyes at the slew of feelings wakening in him, confusing him, scaring him, he managed to drag her to bed and, with a mighty shove, pushed her down.

She fell down with a soft cry and then, she stopped moving.

"Dobe?"

She raised her forearm over her eyes.

"I'm in bed now, teme," she said after a moment, her tone irked, her mouth curved to show she wasn't, her bottom lip quivering as if she was trying to stop from laughing, or crying, "So now go sleep, evil bastard overlord."

He grunted and, with a last look, turned to leave. It was oddly one of the hardest things he had ever done and it left him more confused at the pang in his chest.

"Good night," he said gruffly. He paused when he reached the door, hesitating.

"Night, yarou!" she returned cheerily.

He left.

He didn't leave because she told him to. He left because, before she had covered her eyes, he saw the shards of blue shattering a bit more.

Her eyes were too bright from the slivers of the sky.

* * *

She was in bed lying to her left, her face marred with a frown, the messy tumble of her yellow hair stark against a red pillow. Her fingers twitched and she made a small sound every now and then, her lips forming silent words as her brows furrowed deeper and deeper. Something sparkled in the corner of her eyes and he leaned forward, studying her, steadfastly not concerned.

Was she having a nightmare?

A choked gasp.

... Should he wake her?

He sighed. Who was he kidding? He just wanted a reason to touch her without any protest on her part. He had yet to and his fingers were itching to brush against her skin, feel the honey against snow and see if it was as silky as he imagined it to be. He had been too distracted to completely enjoy last night.

He reached out. No, his hand wasn't shaking. No, he wasn't breathing fast. No, this was nothing, it was only him waking her from her nightmare. It was just being... sympathetic. He had nightmares too and he knew how it felt, waking up to nothingness, hands grasping blindly in the dark for an anchor of solace, assurance—Itachi had always caught his hand when he was younger, when the nightmares became too much, too much...

Something struck in his chest, something that hurt him beyond all understanding.

_Who wakes you, dobe, when your nightmare becomes too much? Who holds your hand?_

And so he reached out—his hand not shaky, his breathing not fast—waking her from her nightmare and promising to the listening silence that he would.

And then she was above him, his breath coming out in shallow pants, hazy dark eyes watching the uneven rise and fall of her chest. Her blade was held to his neck once again, her other arm blocking his airway, and yet he had the insane urge to grin at her as she held him immobile between her thighs. He wouldn't have moved even if she wanted him to and he didn't know why—he just knew that he liked his place right now, below her, trapped by her body.

He settled for a smirk to hide his confounding certainty.

"Usu -"

His words stopped. Her eyes were brighter than they were last night.

"Sorry," she whispered, a faint echo in the silence.

His smirk faded. His heart pounded painfully within him as he reached up, as he unconsciously sought to banish the blue rain in her eyes. His fingertips tingled as he brushed his hand against her cheek, a gentleness he didn't know he possess just ghosting over her scars—he was melting, again, snow against honey, coolness against warmth, and this was more than he had ever imagined.

It wasn't enough.

"... Teme?"

A touch and he knew it would never be enough.

* * *

She was thrashing.

He stood by the bed, wanting to comfort her, wanting to put his arms around her, wanting to pull the laces from her hair and run his fingers through the golden strands to soothe her, calm her. He was revolted with himself at these uncharacteristically sappy thoughts but he couldn't deny the yearning he felt to do all these things—he wasn't used to concerning himself with someone other than his brother, and that he was admitting to feeling this, right now, to this girl he had come to _accept_ he was perhaps _a little _attracted to—

She frowned.

It was _vexing_.

Her right arm shot up. He stepped back in surprise, alarmed that she had sensed her so quickly as he stood by the bed so quietly, before mentally sighing in relief when it didn't land on him. He had experienced her punch once and it wasn't pleasant, both to his cheek and to his pride, especially as it wasn't from a spar he had come to taunt from her every once in a while before he prepared for bed.

She had apologized and berated him for sneaking up on her the first time, yelling loudly that _she wasn't sleeping_, but he knew she was annoyed with herself for allowing him to escape her guard so quickly even as she _dozed_. He could even take Itachi by surprise, a mean feat considering his brother had the sharpest senses around, though it had taken him years to master his current stealth. It was all thanks to his brother that he could sneak up on her now and he relished the knowledge—even if he could only do it when she was barely awake.

Her reflexes were still insane, though. At least, she had yet to nick him with the annoying pocket knife she carried around with her. How she could hold a blade against his throat so quickly was still a mystery to him—she could've accidentally held a corkscrew to his neck, or a screwdriver, or even the pocket knife keychain with the little orange frog grinning at him. This, though, went to show him that she was extremely familiar with its many tools that she could threaten him with a knife in a blink.

It made him wonder what kind of work she and his brother used to do—a question she adamantly refused to answer.

He watched her shift, watched her fingers curl around air. Despite how nearly she could've hurt—okay, _kill_—him, he found himself strangely unconcerned about it. Probably because—because—

Because those were the only times she ever held him to her body.

He swallowed a groan. He was really damned _sick_ in the head.

His chest twisted when she whimpered, her hand grasping desperately. Watching her like this squeezed at his heart but he didn't want to wake her. She seemed to be getting more and more tired and he wanted her to rest—whatever it was she did with her time seemed to be taking its toll on her body—because, once woken up, she never went back to sleep. That much he was certain of, after that first night he woke her, when something tugged at his consciousness and woke him up at three in the morning, only to see her standing by his window, just watching the interplay of violet and blue in the dark canvas of night.

But he couldn't bear it, seeing her like this. She wasn't meant for bad dreams.

Hesitantly, he raised his right hand, hovering uncertainly over hers. He slowly stretched his fingers, his touch on her hand so light it could be mistaken for a brush of the wind. When his fingers tentatively landed on her hand, and stayed, he watched her face for any change.

Her thrashing had stilled though her frown remained in place. Encouraged, he slowly wrapped his hand around hers, watching her expression all the while. Then, because he could and because he wanted to, his index finger began tracing small circles on her palm. He felt a smile bloom on his lips when her features relaxed.

He was feeling stupidly happy as he raised his other hand, gently cupping her hand with his as he continued his actions. He felt his heart jump when she smiled and her eyes fluttered open.

"I—"

_It's not real _, he thought to himself. This wasn't real, because there's no way he'd feel something as painful, as deep, as sharp as this stabbing ache just because she had snatched her hand from his.

And it wasn't because of the sickening blue of her eyes, either.

* * *

_Accept the hands reaching past the dark light of lies—the hands of truth may be colder, rougher, but its touch is light, gentle, never blinding, never letting go._


	11. Pulling Through the Darkness

**A/N:** Complete version in my site.

* * *

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Man's greatest enemy is the man in the mirror—he watches your every move, listens to your every thought, observes your every heartbeat and what disrupts its rhythm. He knows what you don't and accepts what you can't—he shows what you refuse to see and shouts what you refuse to hear. He knows you inside out and he waits for your fall, and then he pulls you up to safety to throw you into the sea—a just victim of your pride, your lust, your selfishness, your self—and you may choose to swim to sanity or drown to your darkness._

* * *

If she didn't stop, he would come.

Sasuke was floating aimlessly in the darkness when his ears picked up a faint sound. It gnawed at his consciousness, those sounds, made him wonder why he was hearing such things inside the black hole conjured by his mind. Soon the whiteness of his ceiling revealed that the sounds he heard weren't crafted from sleep—he was awake, eyes wide like so, as if he hadn't been sleeping at all.

His eyes darted around, silently asking the shadows for an explanation to this curiosity. He knew he didn't make those sounds, knew he wasn't _supposed_ to hear such sounds, because there were only two people in his house and he knew that the other person would rather die than be heard making such—such _strange_ sounds.

He found himself hesitating on his brother's door, not entirely sure if he should go in, wondering, waiting, listening in trepidation as he stood with his ear pressed to the door. It was bewildering, those sounds, small gasps and low moans, faint whimpers and soft cries—something in him was stopping him, at the same time that something in him, something dark, something terrifying, was urging him to go in. A sharp gasp decided for him.

Anger, ice blue, blinded him for a moment.

Was someone_ hurting_ her?

He quietly opened the door, his heart racing in anxiety and his fist clenched with shaking fury. He didn't know what he would see on the other side and he braced himself—whoever it was would _pay_ for trespassing in _his_ territory and for daring to lay a _finger_ on _hi—**her**. _No one messed with _Uchiha Sasuke_ and his _propertie—**property**._

The door swung open. He cautiously stepped inside, his arms raised. His eyes instinctively sought her.

Air rushed out of his lungs in a painful gush.

Of all the scenarios that had flashed swiftly behind his eyes, of all the blood and gore and destruction his vivid imagination had provided, never had he imagined to stumble into something—something—something like _this_.

And so he stood, frozen by the door, watching her flushed face twist in desperate pleasure as she arched up into the air.

Something tight and hot smoldered painfully below his stomach. He swallowed, his throat dry.

She was panting as her head thrashed against a red pillow, her parted lips red and full and wet, her hips thrusting up and down fastfaster_faster_. Strands of yellow stuck to her sweaty brow, a red lace on her hair coming undone, rays of gold spilling on the left side of her face. A hand was squeezing her right breast through her jacket, her other hand rubbing between her thighs as she writhed on the black sheets, a wild cat trapped in the night sky.

* * *

She whispered. The world stilled.

And then Sasuke bit down on his hand, smothering his first cry of completion, as blinding whiteness ripped through his being behind the darkness of his stinging eyes.

* * *

She waved her hand from his periphery, demanding his attention. It was on the tip of his tongue, the urge to yell at her—he was filthy, he was revolting, and his attention was the last thing she should ever ask of him.

Itachi had never told him. That one traumatizing afternoon on the summer of his twelfth year, that one and only time his brother spouted embarrassingly scientific terms with vivid illustrations in a clinically detached voice to explain _the birds and the bees_, Itachi had never told him once that it would make him feel shame.

_Don't_, his mind whispered. _Don't look at me._

Or guilt.

_Don't don't don't._

"...Did I do something?"

His brother had successfully sucked out all his curiosity, and interest, in sex. It was hard to be _excited_ when he remembered how mortified he was, especially when Itachi had _helpfully_ answered all his _"hidden questions"_ using hardcore pornographic videos. It had taken him a month before he could look at his brother and not see those _scenes_, hear those _explanations_, almost permanently burned behind his eyes and his ears.

_"Observe the woman, otouto. She is performing fellatio, a stimulation of the penis with the use of the lips, the tongue, and sometimes the throat when the person is especially talented. When a man is as fortunate as this one, his scrotum gets the same treatment... This is normally called a blowjob, or getting head. It is easier to convince a homosexual man to perform this act as opposed to a heterosexual woman. This man is certainly fortunate. Listen at her low hum and analyze the man's reaction."_

His eyes were too wide in shock—_and not because his brother was speaking in paragraphs!_

_"That is cunnilingus. Notice how the man stimulates her clitoris with his mouth. The vulva may also be stimulated, like what he is doing now with the tip of his tongue. This is a wise decision as the clitoris is very sensitive, which accounts for some women orgasming simply from clitoral stimulation, though there are women who orgasm from stimulation of their breasts alone... In oral sex, cunnilingus is to a woman as fellatio is to a man... Also, observe the alignment of their bodies. This position is called soixante-neuf, more known as 69. You will hear a host of humorless jokes about it among your peers in the future."_

He was waiting for the floor to open up and swallow him. Or his _brother_.

_"The receiving partner, in this case a woman, is on top of the penetrating partner. This is known as the cowgirl position. Now notice how she turns to face away from her partner. That is now called the reverse cowgirl position."_

_His brother_ seriously _thought_ he appreciated this discussion?

_"They are lying on their sides as the man penetrates the woman. That is the spoon sex position. Now the man penetrates her again with the missionary position, but notice how the woman wraps her legs around his waist to draw him closer. That is the stopperage... Froggy style... Viennese oyster... lotus position... lateral coital position... she is quite an adventurous woman, otouto, and full of stamina. Ah, of course. The blurb describes her as a nymphomaniac... Now that is the suspended congress..."_

And when would the movie _end?_

_"Now we will watch homosexual pornography as I would prefer it if we learn your preference early on to preempt unnecessary theatrics. We will first watch sex between homosexual men and then homosexual women, which is admittedly a more pleasing view. We will then move on to orgies and bestiality, among others, paraphilias and fetishes, then we shall tackle sexual crimes, the most notorious of which are voyeurism, exhibitionism, and pedophilia. The last will be discussed completely with this child pornography an acquiantance of questionable taste had lent me. Now I must warn you, otouto, that pedophilia is a crime, and if you turn out to be a pederast, I will have no choice but to schedule a meeting for you with a psychologist."_

He's just _twelve!_

_"Incestuous sex is a sexual act between siblings, though it can also occur between parent and child, and extended family members like cousins, uncles, and aunts. We shall watch such pornography as well, though I shall say this—if you harbor any hint of incestuous feelings for me, foolish otouto, then I shall do everything in my power to destroy it. I refuse to corrupt our souls by performing sexual acts with you even if you simply desire a manual stimulation of the penis_—_which we had discussed early on in masturbation._"

Sasuke threw up on his brother.

"... Teme?"

... Perhaps they were Itachi's way of deterring him from any sexual inclination—?

"Yarou!"

But he had watched her, last night. And not just watched—

_I'm dirty_.

"Oi!"

_Don't._

An empty stare. He could express so much with a mere look.

_Can't you see?_

"I'm not really sure, teme... but I feel a—a weird tension," she gestured to him, to herself, her eyes dimmed by the shadows twining from her hair, "Between us. Y'know?"

_I know._

She wasn't looking at him, never had, but he could feel her piercing look as he leaned by his window. He wondered how she could do that.

_Dobe..._

He wondered if he could ever look at her again.

_It's so dark._

His eyes idly traced the moonriver on his skin. He observed his arms crossed over his chest. He looked so pale, almost translucent, the wash of reflected light lending him an air of impermanence. Like snow against the windowpane on a quiet winter night.

_Can you see?_

He's so colorless. Even Itachi had more color than him.

_Look at me._

Was he even real?

_Is that why you never looked at me?_

Or was he a lie too?

_Look, I'm here._

"Well?"

_Is it so dark you can't see me?_

He snorted, straightening up, banishing his fanciful thoughts—he wasn't the snow, he was dirty, he was a lie, he was lying—pulling at his rational side—he couldn't reach his goal with his head on the clouds, his eyes on her, on her since the first time he saw her—before slouching in his typical posture, his eyes on the floor. He turned away, hiding for as much as he could, the clouds over the moon his temporary refuge, the hair over his eyes his permanent sanctuary.

_I can't see._

"Not everything is about you, dobe." _I'm lying._

An annoyed huff. She could express so much with a mere breath.

_Look._

"Fine, I'll bite. What's the problem then?"

_Look._

"Nothing." _I'm lying._

He walked past her, his hands in his pockets, his back straight. He could feel her eyes narrowing.

_I'm lying I'm lying Look at me Don't look at me I'm here It's so dark I can't see I'm lying I'm lying So dark I'm lying_—

His hands wouldn't stop shaking.

* * *

He was a sick, sick man.

He had taken to standing by Itachi's bed, _her_ bed, just watching her the way he had watched her behind the maple tree in the cemetery. His watcher had become the watched and the irony wasn't lost on him. He took care to stay a distance from her, though, as she appeared to be a light sleeper—he didn't dare approach her unless he had to, because she never went back to sleep when her eyes were forced awake.

There were nights she had her nightmares. He didn't know what she dreamed about, they didn't talk about it, but something within him told him with certainty that his brother was a part of it. Also, her eyes, always averted from his, would resolutely refuse to look in his general direction when he woke her up from a nightmare—as if she feared the phantom in his shadows, the ghost in his skin.

After that first time he woke her, when she snatched her hand away from his as if he was fire to her touch, Sasuke never woke her that way again. Instead, he would grab her hand, forcefully so, and wait for her reflexes to kick in, and then he would find himself underneath her once again with her favored Swiss army knife to his throat. When she cuffed him in the head for not stopping her and being a _pansy-ass wuss_ who couldn't block to save his life, he began to half-heartedly fight against her spinning-and-pinning technique that he had come to secretly enjoy.

He had managed to stop her once with a chop to her right wrist. The knife didn't fall but it had stopped her, and though she still wouldn't look at him, the approval in her sleepy smile had been reward enough. He didn't get to feel her body against him that time, but that smile warmed his heart so much he began to take her _advice_ more seriously.

A soft moan. He shuddered.

Some nights, like tonight, he watched her touch herself and he couldn't tear his eyes from her.

* * *

_I'm sorry_, he wanted to say. A choked gasp of completion came out of his lips instead.

_It's so dark._

He hated himself. How could he use her like this?

_I can't see myself anymore._

And he hated himself more, for hating the fading scent of chamomile and the faint scent of jasmines, mixed together in this room like they were meant to be.

* * *

_Pull yourself together and flail for all your worth—even the noblest had been coerced by the man in the mirror_—_and it is what you learn in the darkness that shines the brightest in the end._


	12. Drowning in Forgetfulness

**A/N:** Complete version in my site.

* * *

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Between white and black stood a thin line of gray, a purgatory of right and wrong where neither truth nor lie stands. In the interstices of gray lay speckles of red—it is the lifeblood of emotions, the soul of decisions, and in its heart are two choices and one must choose well: do you forget what you want or remember what you should? Do you forget a lie and forgive, or remember a truth and move on? Do you forget a right and forge ahead, or remember a wrong and stay behind?_

* * *

"You're distracted," she commented from behind him. His body shivered lightly at her voice.

_Understatement._

It was fortunate that the cool autumn wind decided to blow that moment, from the window that remained open since the first night she came to his room. Dark blue drapes floated from his side, shafts of moonbeam crossing with dancing blue sprites on his embroidered navy blue carpet. It made quite a sight.

_"Kaa-san made this with her hand_,_"_ Itachi had said once. _A labor of love_, was the silent follow-up.

A love that Sasuke had never felt.

But now, it had spilt milk and blood. _Should I have it cleaned? _he wondered. He thought his carpet looked better, though.

"You never stop thinking, do you?" she asked, though her words sounded more of a final statement. A retort was at the tip of his tongue but he stopped himself—he couldn't get into a banter with her now. Maybe not ever.

He didn't deserve her company.

He refrained from looking at her, pausing only to acknowledge her presence before resuming his writing. He had a feasibility report for Physics due next week, and while he would have been done an hour or so ago—he kept strictly to his schedule of school works—it had been difficult to concentrate because his thoughts kept drifting.

He glanced behind him.

Drifting to her.

"Anything I can do to help or something?" she went on, persistent in gaining an answer from him. He didn't know if he should be ashamed—or happy, that her attention was focused on him. Damn, he's so disgusting. And sappy. An Uchiha was _never_ sappy. "I'm not good with most of that science shit, just to warn you. But maybe I could be your soundboard or something?" she added.

He shook his head with a grunt and she huffed, clearly displeased with their interaction. Sasuke almost wanted to turn to her, confess that he had been watching her in her most intimate moment, a voyeur to her nocturnal desires, and that more than watching, Sasuke was feverishly touching himself thinking it was her, fervently dreaming he was touching her the way she touched herself. But he was a coward, and he couldn't, because he wasn't ready to be left alone again just yet.

Sasuke had lived alone for years but he had never felt so lonely before.

He stiffened when he felt her hovering by his shoulder, a silky river of gold teasing his cheek and his neck. He could feel her breath gliding on his skin, could feel her mindless hum vibrating all the way to his core.

He licked his lips. His mouth had gone dry.

"Hmmm..."

And _damn_, he could smell her. Those blasted _jasmines_, and something more that was hers alone that he hadn't noticed before. It embraced him, her scent, and it was making him heady and he couldn't bloody concentrate at what he was supposed to do.

"I can manage," he finally said, his voice icier than usual, hiding the tremor in his body at her maddening nearness. His nerves were going haywire and he was summoning all his willpower to stop his hand from shaking. Stop himself from raising his hands to grab her, to—

_The lightning bolt is three times hotter than the sun like her hands on my—**fuck**._

"Che," she scoffed. She was breathing on his nape. Goosebumps rose on his skin. He swallowed at the liquid heat stirring in his belly. "You didn't have to be a bastard about it," she muttered.

Her breath was too hot. Or maybe it was his body that was burning up.

She moved away and his grip on his pen tightened. His other hand twitched from the strong urge to grab her wrist and force her to stay. The coldness behind him from where she retreated was acutely painful, slamming behind him like a physical punch. It was more painful than the heat she had brought with her.

How could one person affect him like this? Was this what _attraction_ was supposed to be? Or—Or _lust_?

Sasuke glanced to his left, eyes uncertain. She was sitting on the most shadowy corner of his room once again, her eyes closed but watching. Waiting.

"Sleep," he ordered, his focus on his report. He was a bad liar.

She snorted. He refused to raise his head and watch her nose crinkle like he knew she was doing right now. It was adorable and dangerous and it would kill his remaining focus.

"I don't slee—"

He snorted back. "Liar."

_We match._

He blinked at his thoughts in surprise, biting his bottom lip at the surge of that damning _shyness_ making his way up his throat, intent on manifesting on his damned _pale _cheeks. He desperately looked down at his paper, struggling to make sense of his own words, waiting for his heart to calm down and stop fucking _jumping behind his ribcage._

"Teme—" she growled.

Feeling normal enough, he simply said, "Dobe."

He could sense her struggling from hitting him. She huffed again instead, and he saw her cross her arms over her chest from his periphery. He quickly averted his eyes once more as her lips puckered into an immature pout.

A bloody _pout_ he found _sexy_.

_Damn_ her.

"I shouldn't even be sleeping, dick," she muttered.

"Everyone needs their rest," he countered, carefully casual. He didn't want her to think he was concerned. Because he wasn't, really. He just—wanted her off his case.

He could feel her stare boring into his temple. He could also feel the smile that tugged on the corner of her mouth.

He almost sighed. His heart was swelling in his chest. Why was he happy?

"You're still a dick."

Why did he want to smile?

* * *

He shouldn't be doing this.

A white hand gleamed porcelain against the sparse moonlight, steadily sliding down a honey-gold arm. The hand traveled to an arched back before hot, hungry lips descended on a dusky nipple.

He _really_ shouldn't be doing this.

She gave a soft moan. His body shuddered at the sound.

Barely five minutes ago, Sasuke had been watching her like the obscene addict he was, her nose buried on a red pillow with her body arched up in the air. He could see her hands stroking herself through her jacket, her pants, and he was mindlessly stroking himself inside his boxers, his eyes helplessly glued on her tan hands. Her hips jerked up and down in a frantic motion, and he was echoing her movements until her hand, so content before to rub herself outside her pants, climbed up and slipped inside—

And then she was breathlessly crying out and his hands had left his boxers and Sasuke was tearing away her jacket and he thought her fishnet shirt was damned hot and white bandages slipped off and he finally understood why men wouldn't stop talking about _breasts_.

He was painfully aroused and her body arching to his touch only strengthened the desperate ache.

* * *

Glassy blue eyes snapped open. She came with a soundless cry.

He collapsed over her, his skin flushed and glowing with sweat. A besotted smile was making its way on his lips. He was near giggling.

Then reason returned out of nowhere and everything crashed down.

Hazed eyes abruptly cleared. He took in the sight of their naked bodies still intimately pressed together and Sasuke choked on a shocked gasp, quickly rolling away. His wild dark eyes darted around. His breathing came shallow and painful.

What had he _done_?

She moved.

He froze. A wave of intense fear crashed into him.

_I raped her_. _I fucking **raped** her_.

He was drowning.

_What the fuck have I__ **done**?_

Sasuke tried to speak up but he couldn't past his throat that had closed up, against his lungs that kept exhaling and inhaling air at an alarming rate. He dimly realized he was hyperventilating and it was the urgency that he had to make things right that stopped him from having a full-blown panic attack. He reached out a shaky hand just as she turned.

Eyes, shattered blue crystals, calmly looked behind him. He bravely looked into her eyes, dark eyes showing his guilt, his sorrow, his revulsion at himself. Against the absence of censure in her glowing blue eyes, Sasuke couldn't breathe.

He remembered the pain of air rushing back into his lungs when she merely reached for the red pillow and buried her face in it. Feeling a sudden shyness, he lifted a hand and tentatively touched her arm—_look at me, are you angry, I'm sorry, I'm not sorry—_his fingers ghosting over her skin. She stiffened.

He swallowed and drew away. He moved to the other side.

Lying on the bed, beside her, the evidence of what had occurred tangible and real, she had never felt so far.

* * *

He was afraid. Afraid she'd never come back.

Sasuke paced by the window, glancing at his radio clock every lifetime of waiting. It was always the same time. _9:59 pm_. Should he replace his batteries?

Where was she?

He had spent a restless hour in front of his TV, flipping through news of dead officials and famous celebrities, trying to summon enough interest in his body to gather the right amount of concentration to stick to a channel. But even the news of an awaited book already out on the bookshelves failed to interest him, and his mind, tired from thinking, from worrying, simply shut down and he drifted into a restless nap.

He woke up, ten minutes later, strangling a scream at a singing Barney on his high-definition TV. He beaned a throw pillow on the TV in frustration and turned it off. Damn, how he _despised_ that monstrosity.

A dark blur shot through his window at the exact moment _10:00 pm_ flashed red in his clock. He felt his heart stutter to a stop before racing, as if to make up for that single pause in a lifetime of beating. His palms were sweaty when she stood up—slowly, oh so slowly—and turned to him.

What would she do? Would she punch him in fury? Sneer at him in hatred? Turn away in disgust?

He swallowed.

_Hit me, hate me._

Would she say she was leaving because of a night he couldn't control himself?

_Just don't go._

"Teme," she began, her head tilted to look up at his forehead. Sasuke kept his eyes slightly averted, knowing his control would break if he looked at her. Just the knowledge she was in his room made him want to throw her to his bed and have his way with her once again.

And again.

"Why aren't you in bed?" she asked.

His heart clenched, his mouth automatically saying that he went to bed in his own time. He felt a sting of disappointment that she chose to act like nothing had happened between them.

_It's... It's better this way. She doesn't hate me and she's still here. And maybe_—_maybe she didn't mind what we did last night... Maybe... Maybe..._

Despite the circumstances of how it happened, it had been special to him. It was more than a first time—it was a first time with _her_.

* * *

Sasuke wanted so much to see her spun-gold hair framing her tan face, fanned beneath her like an aureole. He wanted to thread his fingers through her hair, had wanted to since the first time he saw her in the throes of her nightmare—he imagined it was silky to the touch, soft. He wanted to bury his nose on her hair and inhale deeply, taking in as much of the sun as he could until fire burned in his lungs.

When his seeking hand moved to pull a red lace, she stiffened, a deep frown creasing on her brows. He drew his hand back. When he tried the second time, eyes snapped open with blue fire, traces of her previous nightmare gone.

He apologized with kisses on her jawline. She accepted with a soft hum, her eyes drifting shut.

He nuzzled her neck and took a deep breath. Jasmines and her unique scent tempted his resolve.

Sasuke was drowning in her.

* * *

"If you can forget, will you?"

Sasuke looked up, not a hint of surprise shown in his face. She was leaning on his open window, elbows on the ledge, a hand cupping her chin as she stared outside. He felt that warmth stirring in his heart once again, causing a smile to curl at the edge of his mouth before he hastily smothered it. She looked like a wistful blonde child waiting for miracles. Or maybe angels?

_Angels._

He almost laughed. There was nothing angelic about her. She was loud. Rude. Peremptory. Sensual. She was dragging him to the abyss with her dark moans and demonic grins.

She was the temptress, the devil.

_Fall with me._

He was a sinner.

"Ne, teme?"

Her question echoed in his mind and he processed his thoughts for an answer.

_Forget?_

He turned away, unable to look at her. He didn't really know now. Before his brother's death, he would have simply sneered at the question while managing to convey that even a moron would opt to remember everything. Now, he wasn't so sure... mainly because that was what he had been doing. Forgetting.

He closed his eyes.

"Oi?"

Forgetting his nii-san was murdered. Forgetting he didn't know her. Forgetting what they were supposed to be to each other. Forgetting in her arms.

"I think—"

_I am..._

Forgetting she didn't belong to him.

"—I'll choose to remember."

_... a hypocrite._

Forgetting it hurt.

"You're braver than I give you credit for, bastard." A heavy sigh. "I think I just might."

_Do you want to forget the nights you're in my arms? Or do you want to forget I'm not the one you're dreaming of?_

Forgetting he was lying to her, to himself, that maybe he was falling deeper and deeper and he didn't want to stop.

_I think you already do._

* * *

Sasuke was drowning once more.

Repeat.

"Dobe—"

_Repeat._

"Tell me—your n-n-name."

Repeatrepeatrepeatr_epeat._

"P-P-Please—t-tell me—"

Fasterharderdeeper_faster._

"Your—name, I w-w-want t-to—know y-y-your name—"

—_fuck_.

They came together, the wisp of a ghost on her lips and the ghost of her name on his.

* * *

_Drown in the static line between black and white—the gray does not judge you a fool for forgetting, but the red crowns you brave for the courage of remembering._


	13. Breaking the Deafening Silence

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Silence reveals what are best kept concealed, unkind in its telling, brutal in its gloating. It does not desist from telling you the harshest of truth—that perhaps it is silent because there is none to love you, that perhaps it is silent because there is none beside you._

* * *

Two months after he saw her standing by his brother's headstone, a box arrived on his doorstep.

The box, red and big as it sat innocently outside his door, was full of duct tape, as if a trigger-happy child had managed to grab the adhesive under his parents' careless noses and rolled it around the box to ensure that no one else can see what was inside. It was frustrating, to say the least, because Sasuke grew up under his brother's many repeated reminders, one of which was not to accept a suspicious object without first making sure it was safe for him and those around him.

It was a Sunday and he had all the time in the world to glare at it—sadly, the box had yet to explode two hours later, and annoyed that there was no available gap from which he could have a peek, or at least where he could slip a miniature camera his brother had told him to use on such occasions, he kicked the box in frustration.

Sasuke froze and immediately cringed at his possibly fatal mistake. He held his breath as the content of the box rattled. He exhaled when nothing else happened.

Giving up, he decided to _finally _carry the box inside his house. After leaving it in his living room, he took a pair of shears and began tearing through the infuriating tapes with a sinister vengeance. A couple of minutes later, his gloved hands put on a pair of safety goggles, bracing himself for exploding shrapnels, and threw the box open.

A familiar necklace immediately greeted his sight.

Sasuke mindlessly pulled down his goggles and watched dazedly as a shaking hand carefully touched it, lifting it up to the glare of the fluorescent light. Then, the same hand clutched it to his chest and a choked sob floated up his ears in the deafening silence of the afternoon. Droplets of water landed on the pale hand, and he felt a detached wonder when another hand touched his face and came away wet.

_The poor hands_, he thought.

It wasn't until they were numb that he realized they were his.

* * *

He loved her on his lap, since that night their entwined hands intimately touched her, naked and arching against his chest. He felt nearer to her somehow. Felt he could keep her safe, make her happy. He could feel it after all, her heart slamming against her chest with each breath, each touch, each strangled moan he could coax out of her.

Sasuke was a quick study and there was nothing he liked more than learning the secrets of her body.

She grounded against him. He grabbed her chin for an upside-down kiss. His lips landed on her nose.

A particularly vicious thrust had her curling her toes. She reached behind him and grabbed harshly at his nape.

She froze.

_No_, he thought wildly.

Glassy blue eyes slowly opened.

_Nonono. Not yet. Not now. Nonononono_—

Sasuke dragged her hand up to his hair. He ignored the sting of the fierce pull, sucking and biting on her neck as he thrust inside her once again. Her eyes fluttered shut.

The sting in his chest hurt damned more.

* * *

Two days had passed since he received the box.

It had been an excruciating afternoon, full of reminders of what he had lost and will never have again. Each trinket, each object had been his brother's, and each brought a memory and a fresh wave of tears pooling in his eyes. Sasuke had yet to finish by dinner, and not wanting her to worry about him, he stopped to wash his face and ate dinner outside. Not ready to return home, he spent an hour in the village park, simply soaking in the autumn night.

The moon was full tonight, glorious as it rested among the stars. Since the night he first woke up to her presence, Sasuke had come to appreciate the beauty of the night. He didn't even sleep by nine in the evening anymore—he had taken to waiting for her to arrive, and depending on what he was up to and what he was in the mood for, he would be reading as she provided the background music of her husky voice; or playing chess with her—Sasuke had been surprised at her level of competency; or simply talking, talking, talking about anything she brought up. They would do any of these, she waiting until his eyes grew heavy and Sasuke finally fell asleep.

And then he would wake up, close to the strike of midnight, either to her nightmares or her dreams in the room across his.

Sighing, he stood up and made his way home. He was fairly close to grumbling, twenty minutes later, as he reached uphill. His bicycle had a flat tire again.

He glanced at his watch. Damn, it was almost ten. He hadn't noticed the time.

He looked up and almost shrieked when her face suddenly appeared in front of him. He tried to calm his frantic heartbeat but her nearness, her body, her overwhelming scent of jasmines caused his heart to beat faster.

"Oi, fucking idiot," she greeted casually. Sasuke tried to glare but he was too dazed at her standing so close to him. And she was glowing too, from the light of the street lamp behind her. Like a goddess.

She threw an object. Sasuke was too distracted to stop it from hitting him in the chest. "Brought your shit," she said.

A foul-mouthed goddess.

The air pump smack on his chest woke him from his stupor. He blinked stupidly and picked it up, staring at it for a confused moment until his mind registered what it was, its purpose, and her loud guffaw at his apparent slowness. With an embarrassed glower, he knelt down to use the pump.

They returned moments later, Sasuke in his bicycle and her jumping on rooftops and sliding through trees, and both made for his room, he through his door and she through his window. He went to his bathroom and returned, ten minutes later, clad in his dark blue shirt and black boxers—she was already on her shadowy corner, watching him from behind her closed blue eyes.

He was glad for her presence, even if he was afraid he would start spilling his grief all over her once again. The return home had immediately reminded him of why he had chosen to eat out, and seeing the evidence of what he had done the whole day in his living room was threatening to overwhelm him once more. He didn't want to ask her for her comfort again, but her nearness was enough to lessen his hidden sorrow.

And so he turned to his bed, bade her a quiet _good night_, and slept. He slept fitfully, fighting against his bed sheets, and woke up in the middle of the night to shadowed blue skies peering down at him. It was the scent of jasmines that brought him to a calmer sleep.

Before he drifted off, a small smile formed on his lips.

_Thank you._

* * *

Sasuke woke up, as he had done so since she stayed, around four in the morning to the emptiness she left behind. Rather than worrying over it and going back to a restless sleep, he decided to finish rummaging the box.

His eyes were too tired but a particular object brought fierce tears to his eyes—a plushie.

He knew that plushie. He himself had made it for his brother when Itachi turned fourteen, the first and last gift he had made with his hands. He was seven then, turning eight in a month, and he had no money to buy the gift he wanted to give his brother—a watch. It was while watching his show that he caught a commercial on DIY plushies and Sasuke, eager to please, decided to make one for his dear big brother.

It wasn't perfect but Itachi hadn't cared, and he had shown his gratitude in a warm smile and an affectionate ruffle on his hair. They had eaten out that day, and he basked in the happiness of seeing his brother admire the plushie of a potbellied Itachi.

He couldn't recall seeing it in the years that followed and Sasuke himself had forgotten about it—but it seemed Itachi had kept it after all these years. It was frayed at the edges, its colors faded, its beady eyes worn and tired. It had clearly been loved.

Just like him.

He couldn't remember how long he sat in his bed, grieving in silence, but the sun was up when he stood. After mechanically finishing his personal chores, he went down and made himself breakfast, the silence of his house ringing shrilly in his ears. He ate robotically, his food tasteless, and then washed his dishes. Once done, he went back to his room and began to prepare for school.

Only one object was left—a square box. It was flat in a nondescript brown with no tapes or staples to keep it closed. He briefly closed his eyes, battling the weariness washing over him, and removed its lid.

He took a sharp breath. It was a DVD.

That night, he ignored her presence by the shadows as he pretended to sleep. The plushie sat on his bureau, another silent watcher of his pretense.

* * *

She wasn't made for silence, that was clear to him, but she could be so silent sometimes and it brought an unnatural fear running through his veins.

He realized her silence was learned, impounded into her for reasons he didn't know. Whatever they were, he hated them already—she was made for laughter and music, snickers and yells. She wasn't supposed to moan so lowly, cry out so softly, gasp out so quietly. Whether through the nightmares in her mind or through the dreams his hands weaved, she shouldn't be controlling herself.

And it alarmed him, that control. Her actions were measured, her gestures calculated. They could highlight her unspoken words or divert from her speaking eyes, and they worked on him so well and he knew she wasn't as innocent as she appeared. She was silent in her loudness, dark in her brightness, sophisticated in her childishness—she was a paradox and her mystery beckoned him as much as it scared him.

And she was all woman underneath the travesty of her clothes.

Sasuke reached out, his eyes tender. There was no one to see it, and the only one who could had her eyes closed.

She was, he mused as moonlight gleamed on her creased brows, a blade.

His hand caressed her cheek. She didn't flinch.

She was the pure smile of a blade finding its mark, innocently cruel as it reflected its victim's face twisted in delightful horror.

"Usuratonkachi..."

He was the bright gleam of fresh blood pooling to her hilt, vibrant and warm and seductively beautiful.

"I won't let you go."

She was the blade and he was holding her and he couldn't let go.

His breath hitched as she leaned to his touch, her face soothed of her nightmares.

It was perfection—the red of his blood on the white of her smile.

Sasuke shook his head and chuckled softly.

Or he was perhaps just the juice of tomato.

* * *

It had been four days and he still hadn't opened the DVD. He was afraid of what he would see, afraid of what he would feel. He didn't want to grieve anymore—it was physically taxing, mentally scarring, emotionally draining. He couldn't take any more proof of the fact that his brother would never return anymore.

And yet, he found himself booting up his laptop, as if his subconscious had finally taken over his actions. He sighed. Prolonging the agony would just let the wound fester, and he should be man enough to face the music. Time won't wait for him, after all.

Besides, this could be what he needed to move on. He needed to, because he had to bring his brother's murderers to justice.

Sasuke automatically keyed in his password, and jumped in surprise at the sound of his desktop. Shaking his head ruefully, he took the DVD from its case and pressed the DVD drive open. He slid it in after a second's hesitation before pushing the drive close.

A pop-up window later and he was seeing the contents of the DVD.

The folders were arranged by file type, and he smiled a little at his brother's predictable obsessive-compulsive behavior. Steeling himself, he clicked the _Pictures_ folder and clicked at a random file. He gasped.

It was him and his brother on an afternoon in the amusement park.

Sasuke closed the file in a panic. Nono_no_, he wasn't ready for this. Fuck, he wasn't ready _at all_. How could they do this to him? Wasn't it enough that his brother was gone? Did they have to throw it in his face, the life they had together and would never have again?

He wrapped his arms around his middle, desperately holding himself together. Wasn't it enough that he had no parents? Did they have to take his brother too?

He curled on his chair, burying his face as he heaved. He was through crying, he had no more tears to shed. And even if he had, he was done with it. He didn't want to cry anymore.

And hell, he didn't want to run away anymore too.

After managing to compose himself, Sasuke opened another folder, this time named _Sources_. It was full of documents with names like "How to Ascertain if your Suspect is Lying" and "Interrogation 101." He gave a watery smile. It was typical of his brother—he was looking for anything that would help him become a great detective.

Another folder named _Notes_ yielded a list of names and pertinent information, some with remarks in red colored-font and some in black. Not in the mood to dwell on what he couldn't understand at first glance, he returned to the folders list and bypassed the other folders in favor of looking at the last one—_Videos._

With mixed emotions, he opened the folder. It contained a video clip creatively named, _"To My Foolish Otouto."_

He took a shuddering breath. No question, then—this DVD was really made by his older brother and meant for his eyes. But could he do it? Watch this video? Sasuke knew what he would see, who he would see. Was he ready for it?

Hell, he couldn't even look at their pictures.

Sasuke slammed his laptop shut. He'll watch it tomorrow.

He was more desperate that night but she didn't seem to care. He only needed to know he was still alive and she was there to prove to him he was.

Only she could break him from the deafening silence.

* * *

_Break the deafening silence with a loud clamor of denial, but remember that silence does not like to be lied to—either find someone to prove that someone out there loves you, or find someone out there who would choose to stay beside you._


	14. Losing All Over Again

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_When someone you care for vanishes abruptly from your life, like the flame of a candle blown by a gust of winter chill, you silently wait for his shadow to appear around the corner—and you stand, just around it, waiting for his shadow, waiting for him to appear_—_and you wait, always, until you got used to the dark, until you got used to his absence_—_and then you see a flash of light, a flicker of shadow, a hint of his presence, and it vanishes once more and you feel it, keenly, the absence of light, the absence of shadow, the absence of him._

* * *

Her eyes had shot open and he knew it was over.

Sasuke watched her reach for a damned red pillow, knowing she would turn away from him once she had it in her grasp. He hated it, that pillow—she never touched him so willingly, never reached for him so urgently, never embraced him so lovingly. It didn't matter which pillow it was—it could be the one behind her head, in stark relief against the gilded silk of her hair; or it could be the one clutched to her heart, in marvelous contrast to the bronze sheen of her breasts—Sasuke hated it for the being her only accepted reality after their night together.

He could see her fingers, long and elegant, wrapping on the red satin. He could see her eyes falling half-mast as she began to turn away. He could see her slipping away from him once more, golden sands against his fingers, to return to her dreams.

Sasuke couldn't take it anymore.

"Why do you wear bandages?" he blurted out. Sasuke was surprised his question had come out in his usual nonchalant tone—he was afraid it would sound wavering, unsure, the way he was currently feeling. He had never dealt with her like this before and the uncertainty was making him anxious.

Sasuke realized that he was a bit _frightened_ of how she would respond.

She paused, her body half-turned. Sasuke couldn't help but admire her graceful profile, loved by the webs of silver drifting from moonshine on her right. She didn't seem to be breathing, though—even when she moved, a heartbeat later, moving to shut herself from the world, from him.

"Is it comfortable?" he asked, grasping on straws, on words, to make her come back. He felt his heart thump hard in his chest when she moved once more, breathed once more—as if in her breathing, the world, _him_, breathed as well.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice flat. The red pillow lay in her arms, near her heart.

"Talking," he answered, condescending, as if speaking to a witless child. He needn't let her know how much his heart was beating against his throat.

"We talk _a lot_," she retorted. She pulled farther away from him, closer to the edge of the bed, as if distance from him could make him disappear. The red pillow followed, a shield against him.

Sasuke felt a deep stab of hurt.

"We never talk after this," he said quietly. He had meant it to sound cool, even indifferent, but the ache from her previous action resonated so deeply within him that it slipped through his voice. He was beginning to regret this, trying to reach her. He should have—

He should have gone on with their tacitly-agreed charade.

She turned to him, eyes piercing bolts of blue. "What the _fuck_ are you going on about, _Uchiha_?" she asked coldly. Sasuke couldn't stop from flinching. There was such malice in her question, such darkness when she addressed him by his surname. For perhaps the first time in his life, he was ready to give up.

But she wasn't done.

"Whatever _this _you think we have is _all in your head_."

And he realized, so was he.

"Like whoever you _imagine_ me to be when I _fuck _you, _is that it?_" he hissed, blind anger wanting only to hurt her as much as her words had hurt him. He felt no satisfaction at how her eyes dimmed, however, so suddenly devoid of its fiery light. No comfort at how all life and color had vanished from her face.

There was no triumph in hurting her.

She abruptly turned, her body curving around the red satin pillow—she didn't see Sasuke stuttering his apology, his voice stumbling on air as he tried to speak, tried to undo the past minute, tried to take everything back. But she couldn't see how shame suffocated the words he so desperately needed, for she herself, Sasuke knew, was suffocating in the bitterness of his ill-conceived words.

_There are four things in life that are never recovered: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity._

Sasuke would rather die than intentionally hurt her again.

* * *

Sasuke was ready with his apology when she came around at her usual hour.

Before he could say anything, she tilted her head to the right, as if assessing him, before shrugging and sauntering to her usual corner. She paused for a moment and he tried to seize it.

She stole it from him, though.

"It's easier to wash blood from."

His brows furrowed, wondering at the strange comment. Sasuke was about to ask what idiocy she was spouting again when his question from last night came back to him.

He didn't say anything. He didn't want to confirm if she was joking or not.

* * *

Sasuke skipped school today. Not that it really mattered—this was the first time in his life as a student that he missed a day at all. Besides, he already had enough perfect marks to compensate with this single absence. Surely his grades wouldn't suffer that much.

And even if they did, he really couldn't care less right now.

He stared at his wallpaper, still staring as his laptop showed his black screensaver—Sasuke found a styled screensaver virtually worthless, as he wasn't even supposed to be around to see it. He had enjoyed it, though, that one time he installed the _Blue Screen of Death_ screensaver on each computer in one of the school's computer laboratories. It had been Itachi's prank on him.

Sasuke found himself smiling at the thought.

He started in surprise when a string of characters in bold and vibrant red font suddenly jumped from his screen.

_"Procrastination is for cowards, foolish otouto."_

He chuckled weakly. Evil nii-san, haunting him even in his laptop. He didn't even know that his brother had fooled around with his laptop again. The last time he did, Sasuke's screensaver had become a slideshow of his baby pictures.

Taking it as a sign—because he was neither a procrastinator nor a coward—he moved his optical mouse and waited for his desktop to appear once again. And then, before he could talk himself out of it, he clicked the video and waited anxiously as his video software opened.

He drew back in shock when the black abruptly receded and showed his brother sitting calmly across him. His throat tightened as a knot rapidly formed.

_Oh hell no_—

"Don't cry," his brother's monotone echoed in his room. Stunned into stillness and obedience, Sasuke didn't.

Itachi was sitting on a red cushion, and he dimly realized it was the divan in his brother's room. He wondered faintly when this was recorded.

"If you're watching this, then it means I have been dead for three months," his brother said. Sasuke flinched at the bluntness, at the lack of expression in the features so like his own—but then again, his brother was never one to mince his words or show what he felt. Itachi was almost cruel that way, though his purpose was simply to deliver truths and facts. It made the listener pay attention, however—pay deep attention using the mind and not the heart.

It was working on Sasuke, right now. And he was thankful.

"There are a lot of things I never told you," Itachi went on. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes at the understatement, scoffing despite himself. His brother rarely talked about himself, period, and he had been too preoccupied with gaining Itachi's approval to think about it. Sasuke had asked every time they met what was up with his brother, but always, upon hearing his answer—_"It's not important"_—he would readily dismiss it as well.

His brother ran a hand through his long dark hair, an action that immediately alerted him. Nervous gestures were practically non-existent in their physical vocabulary. Sasuke unconsciously braced himself.

"I am not the man you think I am, Otouto." Sasuke straightened up, his brows furrowing. "But first, I must tell you the truth of the death of our parents."

He blinked slowly. The truth?

Their parents, from what Itachi said, were victims of a robbery-turned-homicide. He was six at that time, his parents distant figures in his life—it was always his brother Sasuke relied upon and, in all honesty, their parents' death hadn't affected him that much. How could he grieve over virtual strangers? How could he when he was more concerned about his older brother with his shuttered dark eyes?

"Otou-san and okaa-san were murdered for bringing down the Oto underworld empire," Itachi said. His brows furrowed. _Oto? Underworld? ... Empire? _"Oto is home to one of the six most powerful criminal empires in the country, and they were murdered in retaliation before the Otokage himself was neutralized. Our parents were killed by the person they thought they could trust the most—our uncle, Uchiha Madara."

His head was beginning to reel. These all sounded too fantastic to be real. _Underworld empires? Otokage? Neutralized? Their parents _brought down an _underworld empire_ in _Oto? Oto_, that _boring village _east of Kyoto? And their _uncle_?

What the _fuck_.

"We were supposed to go home early as Otou-san made dinner reservations to celebrate his promotion following the successful three-year Oto operation. Before we reached our street, however, a man in a long white coat grabbed your hand in what I assumed to be a kidnap attempt. I found you, three hours later, standing by the entrance of a visiting circus, calmly eating onigiri." His brother gave a half-smile as he thought back. A hazy blur of a kind face, gentle smile, and spiky blond hair rose up in his mind. "Had he not taken you," Itachi continued, "we would have gone home early and be killed as well.

"A man named Danzou contacted me with information on our parents' murderer, as Danzou himself is after him. Danzou is the leader of a secret police branch in Tokyo called _Ne_, specializing in organized crimes, criminal intelligence, and surveillance, their affairs beyond the expected boundaries of law. Its purpose is to bring down the criminal organization Akatsuki, which is led by Madara." His brother took a deep breath. "I offered myself as a spy, and six months of underworld work after six months of rigorous training in _Ne _earned me enough renown to be invited as the ninth member of Akatsuki." Sharp dark eyes bored into his, as if to stop the meltdown Sasuke was afraid he was going to have. "I killed a lot of people to get in, Otouto. All of them traitors. All of them family. I'm known as a kin-slayer."

He gasped. No. Itachi wouldn't—!

"Before I offered myself, however, I'm already an agent for ANBU, short for Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai, a secret organization of selected police officers from different parts of Japan, though there are rare cases where civilians are invited and trained to be an agent, like me. ANBU knew that Danzou had approached me and they sent my superior, Hatake Kakashi, with the mission details. He is the student of the man who took you and saved our lives, a senior ANBU who works as a detective under Danzou, gathering evidence to take him out of commission for good. Danzou is, to put it mildly, a crooked cop, Otouto. ANBU has reasons to believe that he is in fact working with the Akatsuki, albeit in specific aspects, and I am assigned to search for his link with the Akatsuki."

_Shit_, his head was beginning to hurt. His brother offered himself to _Danzou _to spy on _Akatsuki, _and Itachi _killed_ their _relatives_ to be invited to this organization_. _But Itachi's an _ANBU_ agent and they sent _Hatake Kakashi_ to make him spy on both _Danzou_ and _Akatsuki _to find the _missing link_ so _ANBU_ could take out_ Danzou_, who was _a crooked cop._

Sasuke rubbed his temple, feeling a headache coming. Why the _hell _did his brother get himself tangled in this _mess?_

"However, recent developments hinted that I may have been compromised," he went on. The calm tone of his brother helped him pull out of his tumultuous thoughts. "Once I'm taken care of, Madara, and even Danzou, are free to come after you as both men despise our family. As such, I leave you in the hands of my partner. You may have known her already—she had been spying on you since she and I met, and I assume that this time she will reveal herself to you. She has wanted to know you for a long time."

_Her_. His brother was talking about _her._

His eyes widened. She had been _spying _on him _longer_?

_"Oi, loser, what're you doin' out here so late? You think this is a nice place like those in your fairytale books? Way's there, broken-compass-for-brains. Or do you want me to teach you how to read a map, bibiri-kun?"_

_"Tch. Get lost, moron."_

His mouth dropped open. That girl in the shadows, that time he got lost! It was three years ago, when he and Itachi first moved to Konoha from Tokyo, and Sasuke had gotten lost coming home from school—it had been nightfall when he stumbled into an alley and he was getting worried, and she suddenly spoke up, out of nowhere, insulting him while giving him directions. Sasuke had never gotten lost ever again and it was thanks to her.

He blinked as another thought came over him. No wonder—_No wonder_ he had accepted her so easily, adapted to her presence so quickly. Because even though he didn't _know_ her, in some way, a part of him _did_.

"I know of only one person they would order to kill me. Only Kyuubi can match me," Itachi mused, as if he was merely choosing an ice cream flavor. It was so casual it brought a cold chill on Sasuke. His brother smiled, though, the dear dark eyes warming him instantly, the smile warm as the sunset they used to enjoy together. "Whatever happens, do not avenge me. I taught you better than that, Otouto. Never let anyone's blood touch your hands. Never let your emotions control you. And never let yourself rise at the cost of someone else's downfall.

"Lastly, never be afraid to move on. We can only move forward, Otouto. That is the only way to live."

He wasn't aware of the tears that had begun to fall down his cheeks.

"Now if you're watching this, it means Kakashi had done his job. Once this video stops, it will delete itself for your security. Another package will arrive in a few days and I want you to use it well once you have achieved your goal to be a detective." His smile softened. "I hope I can help you become the man you are meant to be, but I am confident that you can do so even without me. I may not say this often, but I love you, my precious otouto." Itachi leaned forward, two fingers extended, and Sasuke leaned closer until his forehead touched the screen. His brother's eyes swam before him—always kind, always loving.

Those eyes had always spoken to him and this was the last time they would again.

"Later, Sasuke," Itachi said—_Nii-san, my Nii-san, I never said I love you, You never knew, I love you_—eyes squinting shut with his smile. "There will be a next time."

A great sob tore itself out of his chest.

Sasuke was losing his brother all over again.

"And Sasuke?" Uchiha Itachi called for the last time. The dark eyes opened to reveal their hidden smile.

"I know."

The screen went blank.

When he went to his brother's room, _her_ room, that midnight, Sasuke lay down behind her and his forehead dropped on her hair. He didn't say anything when she woke up from her nightmare, and she didn't say anything when hot liquid glided down her nape. It was enough that she allowed him to pull her into his arms and be the anchor of his world.

* * *

The folder was named_ Videos._

It bothered Sasuke, enough for him to stay awake long after she had left. The skies outside were still dark and he suddenly remembered it was November, that she was only wearing her customary orange and black sweat suit, that the air was chilly at this hour, that she was loitering at an ungodly hour with no hope of protection from unsavory characters and unruly elements. He swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat, ignoring the clamor in his head that he should run after her, that he should have stopped her, that he should be with her right here, right now, in a warm bed with her in his arms, sleeping the sleep of a person with no care in the world. But she wasn't here—she never stayed, she always left at the same hour, and he wasn't important enough to stop her.

He wasn't important enough.

He abruptly stood up, making his way to his own room. He didn't want to think about it, about them, about what they did in Itachi's room—_fuck_, they were doing _it_ in _his brother's room!—_but he had gone long enough without thinking of their situation and acting on feelings and desires alone. How could he let this... this _thing_ they have come into _this?_ It was he who started it, and though he knew it takes two to tango, he was clearly at fault as he was the one who insisted on _watching_ her before diving in to _help_ her.

Lately, he knew, she woke up as soon as he touched her. She never stopped him, true, but she never touched him either. Unless it was to guide him, like the first couple of times—

He sat down, shifting, as his face flamed up at the twitching between his thighs. Damn it, he was thinking with his dick _again!_

He shook his head as his laptop booted, his lips pulling into a frown. She never really did touch him back. Just as she never looked back at him, never kissed him. Never allowed him to kiss her on the lips like he had been yearning to do.

His eyes closed. Did she feel anything, anything at all? About what they've been doing? But what were they doing? _Sex?_ It was too clinical for what they do. _Fucking?_ It was too crude for that, and the sting of that word reminded him of _that_ night. _Making love?_

His chest tightened.

No. It wasn't that either.

He wanted so much to know what she thought of what they're doing. Because to him—to him—

To him, it was special.

He raised the heel of his palm to his eyes, snorting at his bloody cheesy thoughts. Hell, when did he turn into such a _girl_? Was this what feelings did to you, ruin you in the most humiliatingly possible way? Because he didn't care, and if it would give him another second in her arms, a second to pretend he was all in her world as she was in his—and when did that happen, when did it become true?—he would choose to be humiliated for as long as he lived.

Had Itachi ever felt this? These bittersweet feelings, these poignant thoughts? Had he ever felt this sensation of falling into darkness as he fought for the hint of light he had seen from solid ground? Had he lost his head over someone before?

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He hated his runny nose right now.

_Did you ever feel so hopeless, and confused, and scared and content and fucked up at the same time, Nii-san?_

His unseeing eyes stared past the empty folder.

_If you were here, what would you do?_

He sniffed.

_I'm afraid, Nii-san. I don't understand what I feel right now. Why it hurts me to look at her... why it makes me happy when she falls asleep beside me..._

He covered his eyes with his hand.

_... why I would do anything to see her look into my eyes, with a true smile on her lips..._

The world was getting dark.

_Only for me..._

His eyes drifted shut, his mind dreaming of yellow teas and green sunsets and sky blue smiles.

* * *

_It is dark once again and you feel empty once again, and you lose him, so suddenly, all over again._


	15. Revealing the Sun in Her Eyes

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Of the billions of stars in the vastness of space, only one stood as the center of our infinite universe. Just as there are billions of people in the vastness of the world, only one stood as the center of your entire existence. Remember, however, that even the sun will vanish, in a loud explosion of departure or a quiet whisper of farewell, a lost star amidst the billions that would never come back._

* * *

"You skipped school again," a reproachful voice said from the window.

Sasuke sluggishly straightened up, groaning, his muscles aching in all the wrong places. His sleepy eyes took in the orange and black blob perched on his window ledge and instinctively classified it as a wanted guest, before trying to look past the blob with its strange yellow haze into the oddly dark skies. He yawned and winced. His neck was so stiff.

"But you seemed really kinda tired," the same voice went on, almost grudgingly, "so I guess it's okay."

He gave the blob his best drowsy glare, managing to simply look like a ruffled black-and-white kitten instead. The blob laughed, a loud husky laughter that sent a sudden jolt down his spine, and then the sleep threads woven in his mind abruptly cleared and he jumped up in surprise.

"You're early!" he said half-accusingly, pointing with all his surprised might. Sasuke groaned again, this time for a different reason, as he fell gracelessly back on his seat and used the same pointing hand to clutch at his head, squeezing his eyes shut. Damn, why did his head hurt so _much?_

She nimbly jumped down, her posture conveying her disbelief. "So _that's_ what you did? _Sleep all day?_"

He opened an eye balefully. "I have no time for your —" A black box appeared in front of him, digits flashing red and intensifying his headache, bursts of colored dots exploding behind his eyes. He didn't need to look up to see her frown—the way she waved his clock before his face, he had a feeling she wasn't too happy with him.

"Oh," he said instead. His head was pounding so hard...

Her voice softened. "Your head hurts, doesn't it?" she asked. Her obvious concern made him want to smile despite the pain. Sasuke glanced away, covering his mouth with a hand. "You're probably dehydrated from the long sleep," he heard her mutter. Her voice seemed to be drifting away and he felt an uncanny panic claw in his chest. He abruptly twisted around, trying to follow her path. He whimpered at the sharp jolt in his head.

"You didn't eat too," she murmured, "Imma go down and fix you something light so you can take something. Be back soon, yeah?"

He heard the click of his door and all was silent once again. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth against the cruel jackhammer in his head. Sasuke wanted desperately to pound his head on the wall—he couldn't believe he slept the whole day, and now he was dealing with the mother of hangovers without even getting intoxicated.

He had never indulged in alcohol before and any lingering curiosity was gone.

He pried his eyes open, rubbing away the tears from squeezing them too hard, and looked at his dead laptop. Sighing, he plugged it to its charger and slumped back on his chair, tired. His stare conveyed the emptiness he was currently feeling.

Minutes passed and then he mechanically reached forward to reboot his laptop. A sudden thought stopped him and he decided against it. She was here, after all, and he didn't want her to deal with the mess he was whenever he opened his brother's DVD. The _Videos_ folder still niggled at his mind, but he knew there wouldn't be much thinking going on while she was still here.

Sasuke was still trying not to think about everything he had learned. It was too amazing, too shocking, too _much_. He couldn't digest everything or he would choke or burst.

_Videos._

Strange. It was something he found really strange, that Itachi would call the folder _Videos_. His brother was as much of a grammar Nazi as he was, even in simple file-naming conventions. Itachi wouldn't make a mistake like that.

His eyes widened.

_Video**s**._

Sasuke abruptly leaned forward, ignoring how his head reeled at the motion and rebooted his laptop. He tapped his foot impatiently, the barely perceptible sound pounding in his ears, pausing slightly as a wonderful aroma floated to his nose. Wow, she was serious about fixing him something...

Something flitted in his stomach, making him feel light-headed. Oh hell, was he going to throw up?

He swallowed against the uncomfortable feeling, focusing on the DVD. He clicked the _Videos_ folder and, holding his breath, pressed _Ctrl A._

_This folder contains 1 hidden file. If you want to select these files as well, enable viewing of hidden files in the Folder Options control panel._

Sasuke snorted. What a cheap trick. Clearly, his brother wanted him to see this too. But why hide it at all? Unless it's more important than the first video... His brows furrowed. Or _maybe _Itachi wasn't sure if he wanted Sasuke to see it or not? Itachi hid a lot from him, after all, and maybe what this hidden video contained was another secret hidden from him...

He abruptly slammed down the laptop—he could hear her approaching footsteps. Odd. This was the first time Sasuke heard them.

The door opened wide enough for a blonde head to peek in.

"Hey there, you up for an uber-late breakfast-slash-lunch-slash-dinner?" she asked, her voice purposely low as she gently kicked the door aside. He glanced behind and saw her holding a tray with a bowl, a glass, a cup, and a spoon. He hummed in assent, not trusting his voice to hide what he felt at her gesture. Damn, he was feeling _giddy_ and she just brought him _food!_

She placed the tray beside him on his working desk and leaned back, a hand scratching on her nape. "Well, I fixed you chicken soup—really good for the empty stomach, y'know. You can't eat anything heavy yet 'coz you're likely to throw them up, what with you missing a lot of meals and all. Glass of water, cup of tea to drink with the headache med. All good?"

Grateful as he was—touched, pleased, damned _happy_—Sasuke couldn't resist a jibe as he reached for his spoon. "Aa, Okaa-san."

She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. "Good. I expect you under the sheets after, young man."

His grip on the silverware almost faltered, having to run the statement in his head twice to take it as it was—a _riposte_ and not an _innuendo_. Damn, his dick was taking over his current mush for brains.

Sasuke studiously avoided looking at her, feeling unusually self-conscious under the piercing eyes watching his progress, completely different from her light chatter echoing in his room. His headache had considerably eased by the time he finished draining his tea with the pill.

He hadn't drunk green tea since Itachi died. He waited for the accompanying sting at the thought, but he only felt a peculiar wash of peace as her voice permeated his room. He felt lazy and content and Sasuke thought there was no place he'd rather be right now.

He was surprised out of his thoughts when he was abruptly pulled to his feet. Sasuke felt himself flush at the blue gaze appraising him, his face reddening completely when her eyes lingered on his bare chest and his nipples hardened in response.

Oh. Damn. _Fuck._

He couldn't meet her eyes—not that it mattered as she was looking at his table anyway. "Anou, are you going to bed like that or are you doing some manly stuff you have to?"

Sasuke didn't remember what he had said, probably because his mind had blacked out the humiliation of stuttering an answer, _any_ answer, as he escaped to his bathroom. Before he knew it, he had stripped off his boxers and he was under the showers, soaping himself, groaning at his lapse to idiocy and perversion.

_Stupid. Idiot. Moron. Imbecile. Retard._

He punched his temple with every word, grimacing at the pain.

_Pervert._

He glared down at his body, specifically his chest. Traitorous nipples. _Gah_, he wanted to pinch them so much to hurt them but they were his nipples and they were bound to hurt a fucking lot. Stupid, perverted nipples. What kind of a body did he have?

Sasuke glowered at his cock.

_And you! No overtaking my mental functions, dammit!_

"Um, are you drowning in there? 'Coz I'm getting worried and I'd probably knock your door down and save your pale little—"

"I'm coming!" he yelled. His eyes rounded as his words bounced inside his bathroom. His face, red, glared at his dick for daring to twitch in interest. Fucking _hell._ Why did that have to be his answer, of all _things?_

He heard her clear her voice. Sasuke gave a heartfelt groan in embarrassment before belatedly slapping his mouth shut, his eyes growing wider at the sound he had just made. _Hell!_ Why did his mouth keep _digging_ a bigger hole?

_Shit_, that sounded so dirty.

"... Okay," she said after clearing her throat once again. Feeling a bit faint from the combination of a blast of renewed headache and mortification, Sasuke quickly shut off the shower and toweled himself dry, wrapped another towel on his waist, threw his bathroom door open, threw his bedroom door open, and stood in front of her, panting with exertion.

"Look, I'm done," he announced, a slight desperation on his tone. "I just took a bath, I didn't do anything else."

She offered a questioning smile after a surprised pause.

"... You didn't brush your teeth?"

He threw her a half-grateful, half-disbelieving look and went to his closet for a fresh pair of boxers. Sasuke finished his business in the bathroom in ten seconds and returned to his room to see her sitting on his bed with her back to him.

Sasuke felt his heart slam in his chest. She was sitting. On _his_ bed. She was sitting on his bed and she looked so gorgeous on ice blue and he wanted to lie down beside her and sleep in her arms forever.

His breath hitched. _Forever._ Sasuke wanted her, with him, forever. Wanted her with him in a word, in a time, in a place he didn't even believe in before. Even if they didn't touch each other. Even if he couldn't hold her.

"C'mere."

It was enough to him that she was there.

He didn't remember how he got there, on his stomach, with her sitting on his back. Sasuke only remembered gentle hands on his temples, on his neck, on his shoulders, on his eyelids, and dreaming of forever just lying beside each other.

_Forever isn't long enough._

And Sasuke finally understood what they meant when they said these words. Because after this night, he was more than a believer—he was a man who had finally accepted, understood.

Forever hadn't even started and it wasn't enough.

* * *

_Sunset._

The name of the hidden video was _Sunset._

For as long as he could remember, he and Itachi had enjoyed watching sunsets together. There was something about the brilliant splashes of colors in the skies that made connecting with each other much more easier—perhaps it was the awe at the splendor of nature, or the hush that seems to fall upon the world, or the gentle reminder that everything that begins must end—sunset signaled the beginning of their time together.

It was also during sunsets when Itachi would leave two days after he had arrived.

Sasuke sighed. He had skipped school again—he didn't feel up to facing the world just yet. He was entitled to a little time to himself, wasn't he? Besides, he hadn't skipped school on the days following Itachi's burial. His teachers had been worried about him and even kindly asked him to have a time to himself to grieve, but Sasuke had simply stared at them before saying, in his usual monotone, that he was fine.

He wasn't _fine_ now and he would use this time to himself—he deserved that much. Sasuke may be an Uchiha but he was still human.

Nodding to himself, Sasuke opened the video and promptly jolted back in shock at the electric blue suddenly dominating his screen.

_Shit! The blue screen!_

"Oi oi, Ita-Ita, what's the deal with the cam?"

He froze. That voice. It was... terribly familiar...

"Hn. Stop blocking my view with your eye."

_Nii-san? _Sasuke frowned. _Eye?_

"Che. You like the color anyway. Bastard."

His stomach dropped.

"Besides, you woke me up too early, inconsiderate ass. I don't even see the mo—_The moon's out already?_ But the sun's still here!_ Uwah, the sun!_"

It was—it was _her!_

The blue began to draw away, revealing her eyes, her tan face, her two red ribbons holding up her flowing yellow hair, her whole figure in orange and black. Then the screen showed her with her back to the camera, facing the setting sun, sounds of splashing water echoing loudly in his room.

"I feel like a vampire," she went on, chuckling at herself. Her yellow hair shone like molten gold in a furnace, darker against the backdrop of orange and red and the approaching indigo sky. She glanced to the camera, her smile shadowed yet clear. "Haven't seen the sun in so long. Feels like I'm burning."

Somehow, this statement, so casually and playfully delivered, caused a painful twinge in his chest.

_"Thanks for the generous offer, teme, but I sleep during the day so it's cool."_

"Wait!" she suddenly exclaimed. She whirled to face the camera, blue eyes wide as the endless oceans. "That's _it!_ You're trying to _kill_ me, aren't you? You _bastard!_"

Sasuke heard his brother chuckle but he was more entranced by her eyes. He had never seen her eyes like these before...

"I knew _it!_"

Her eyes—they were such... they were such a beautiful blue, a happy blue, a cobalt blue shining with mischief, with joy, dancing and laughing and alive. Like the sky in the interstices of twilight and dawn, like the bottom of the sea as it merges with the ocean, dark yet bright like he had never seen before. They weren't the shards of skies he had seen, not the slivers of broken oceans, not the pieces of spun glass that she always had when she looked anywhere but him—

The sun was shining in the horizon of her eyes.

Sasuke swallowed, his heart clenching. Did she lose the sun in her eyes because of... of Itachi's death? Because those eyes, her eyes like this... they never existed in his world.

"But Ita-Ita..." a soft smile played on her lips, "thank you."

_Ita... Ita?_

A pale hand—Itachi's hand—appeared from the lower right corner of the screen and stroked the blonde's cheek. His eyes, widening in surprise at the tender gesture, widened further when she leaned into his touch with a tranquil expression on her face. His breath caught when her eyes fluttered open, a stunning shot of blue against the orange-painted sky.

"Itachi..." she murmured. Her voice brought heat behind his eyes.

For a second, the screen showed nothing but her lithe figure against the sunset. Then the screen jostled, showing brief snippets of the colorful sky, white sands, smooth tan, before settling on the sea rolling on the shore. Sasuke wondered what was happening at the same time he was afraid to know.

The camera drew back to show her with a foxy grin. She winked at the screen then kicked off her boots, bending down to roll her black pants to her knees. Sasuke felt heat on his cheeks and he slapped his forehead, the video focusing on _her ass_—his brother's a _pervert!_—before taking its time as it traveled down to her bare feet. She was dipping a toe in the water.

"Hey Ita-Ita!" she called out. "Water's nice!"

"Hn."

"And look at the sunset! It's so _awesome! Yosh!_"

A ghostly chuckle. "So it is."

The camera panned to the sky, following the path of the sun as it began to dip into the darkened waters. The sea shone with fragments of sun-spun glass, still against the majesty of the orange swan song.

"How long do we have?" her quiet voice drifted off-screen. The camera panned to the right, showing her standing knee-deep in the waters, her features serious. Sasuke wondered what the question meant.

"An hour or less," his brother replied. She nodded and waded back to shore. She ungracefully plopped down on the sand and patted the space beside her. She rolled her eyes when the camera, in turn his brother, remained where it was.

"Sit down already!" she whined. A deep chuckle and she scowled, put off that she was denied. "What's up with the video thingie anyway? You wanna be a cameraman now?"

"I bought this with Sasuke a while ago," Itachi's bodiless voice replied. "I believe it's a good time to use."

She rolled her eyes again. "And here I thought you're done talking 'bout your snotty kid brother," she said. Sasuke frowned at her words. "Turns out it's _wishful thinking_."

Itachi laughed. It was a sound so rare it brought an uncomfortable lump in Sasuke's throat.

"Oh shut up," she grumbled. Her cheeks were dusted pink. "So what if I'm jealous? He's all you ever talk about. Stupid cocky bastard."

His eyes bulged. She was _jealous_ of him?

Wait. Why would she be jealous of_ him?_

Something icy was beginning to spread under his skin. He wouldn't—wouldn't _think_ about it. She and Itachi—were probably _really _close friends.

"Who would you rather I talk about?" Itachi asked, his voice clearly teasing.

"Anyone who's not a snot-nosed whiny possessive nerd," she grumbled. Sasuke's eye twitched. "Honestly, who falls asleep _hugging_ his _books? _And _oooooh_, the way he _glared_ at you when you took his onigiri that one night! I just wanted to snap his neck in two!"

... Wow. His brother was _snorting._ While _laughing_.

_Damn_ him.

"Nii-san, Nii-san, can you change my nappies?" she said, eyes wider and voice deeper. Sasuke wanted dearly to reach through the screen and wring her lovely neck. "Nii-san, the thunderstorm is scares me! Did you see the five stars sensei gave me, huh huh Nii-san? Nii-san, I makes you favorite tea! Nii-san, can I has onigiri?" Her nose wrinkled after her _accurate_ interpretations, Itachi's laughter the background music to her play. If he could, Sasuke would revive his brother and kick him in the face for just _laughing_ while she spoke. Itachi didn't even defend him!

_Stupid Nii-san._

She gave a dramatic sigh. "Honestly, he's an Ita-Ita fanboy."

His eye wouldn't stop twitching. His brother, meanwhile, had settled to chuckling. "Sasuke is precious to me, you know that," Itachi said. Sasuke felt appeased. Somewhat.

She broke into a rueful smile, a hand scratching on her head. "I know. And he's not _that_ bad. Not really." Her lower lip stuck out. "He's still a nerd, though." She stood up, her hands clasping behind her. "And you did an awesome job raising him by your lonesome, too. I'm sure he's mighty proud to be your brother."

Tears sprang into his eyes, blurring and clearing his vision at the same time.

_I am. Very much so._

"Not as hot as you, though," she added cheerfully. "He's a scrawny thing. Does he eat at all? Or does he just run on Ita-Ita fanboy high?"

That's _it._ He would have to find a way to make her_ pay_ for all her comments about him.

Another chuckle and she smiled. Then, she turned to the horizon, her elegant neck craning up to the stars that had begun to dot the darkening skies. She released a breath and turned to the camera, breaking into a slow, breathtaking smile.

"I have another precious person," his brother suddenly said, his voice a quiet tenor to the chorus of the sea. She tilted her head in question, her hair brushing against her shoulder. "Maybe you know her? Her name is Uzumaki Naruto and she is a very unpredictable girl."

Surprised blue eyes stared at the screen.

"Her favorite food is miso pork ramen, and she can consume as much as twelve in a sitting on a good night," Itachi went on. "She likes the color orange and she sleeps with a walrus cap on her head. She adores frogs and has a special spot for foxes."

Her eyes shone like Sasuke had never seen before.

"When she laughs, her eyes crinkle at the corner and they curve into little half-moons, as if she had stolen a part of the moon and had put it on her eyes. She has many smiles—and I wonder, sometimes, if they are as many as the stars—but my favorite is her smile when she thinks no one is looking. It looks so soft, like what I fancy a cloud to be. It also carries her heart, as if all the words have dried up and she overflows with emotions she couldn't voice, and she unconsciously makes her smile small because fewer words are needed to express the most important things."

His brother paused when she—Naruto, her name was _Naruto_—showed the exact same smile he was describing. Sasuke had to agree with Itachi, the air in his lungs vanishing with the curving of those lips—it was such a stunning smile.

"She enjoys the rain and she dances under it even when someone is watching," his brother continued. "She drinks milk a lot because it's her favorite, and because of the misguided notion that she would reach my height with prolonged drinking before she sleeps." The smile on her face turned into a playful pout and Itachi chuckled. "She likes to play pranks and she is secretly fond of gardening, and she smells of the flowers she first showed to me. It takes her a long time to sleep in an unfamiliar place, but it takes her an even longer time to wake up when she sleeps in the presence of someone she trusts."

Itachi paused and Sasuke could feel it, how his brother braced himself. He felt his heart skip a beat for a reason he didn't know.

"And I hope, when this is over, that she would sleep and live the rest of her life with me in a two-storey house with a stock white picket fence beside my brother's house."

Sasuke began to shake.

Her eyes, round in shock, softened into glimmers of ocean. She bit her bottom lip as she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, the corners of her mouth twitching, her cheeks flushing with a beautiful rosy hue. "She'd agree, you know, if the house has a garden on the back. And a swing set too," she said, her nose pointed up. She bit harder down on her bottom lip, the smile she couldn't hide anymore tremulous, and she wiped an eye with the back of her hand. "And I think she'd be happy too, even without them, as long as he would live the rest of his life with her, too. Bastard soul and arrogant smile and devilish looks and all."

His heart stopped.

Sasuke had known it, at the back of his mind, the true nature of her relationship with his brother. It was apparent when he began sleeping with her, clearer when he began to consider her actions around him when they were both awake. The way she consciously chose not to look at him, the way she wouldn't kiss him, the way she talked about _him_—fondly, lightly, always in the present—the way she reacted to staying in Itachi's room, sleeping in _his_ bed... Even the way her body responded to the scent of chamomile saturating Itachi's red pillows...

But now, faced with this evidence, the fact that Itachi and Naruto were _lovers_... were actually _planning_ to spend the rest of their lives _together_...

"Perhaps a koi pond as well?"

It hurt.

"If frogs can hang out there too!"

The screen jerked and he heard a loud yelp that he knew his brother would never admit to doing. And then they were standing, together, Naruto with her hand curved around the hair on Itachi's nape, forcing his brother to stoop down to her height.

"Near the porch, then we can have your brother over and drink as much green tea as we can, ne?"

Sasuke had never seen his nii-san so happy.

"And for the record, this is Uzumaki Naruto_-sama_ and Uchiha Itachi_-chan_ would be my pretty little _wife, hohoho!_"

He had never seen her so happy, too.

She gave Itachi a loud kiss on a long line on his face and flashed a victory sign to the screen. There was a faint dusting of color on his brother's cheeks even as his brows wrinkled about the wife comment.

Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut, hating the bitterness burning in his eyes.

"Better believe it, _yosh!_"

"Naru_to._.."

He slammed his laptop shut.

It hurt so much.

* * *

_Let this fact reveal a truth about the transience of life—the sun in your eyes may not be eternal, but there are billions of stars ready to shine where it shone, brighter and warmer than the sun you had lost._

* * *

_Let this fact reveal a truth about the transience of life—the sun in your eyes may not be eternal, but there are billions of stars ready to shine where it shone, brighter and warmer than the sun you had lost._


	16. Spanning the Red Bridge

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Love winds the strongest of red strings and builds the strongest of red walls, wrought both from the same blood that loves a brother and a lover. Without blood, however, a red string can break in two and a red wall can break apart, but know that a string can be tied and a wall can be a bridge. What separates can unite, what comes between can be crossed, what draws away can draw you near if you are desperate or hopeful enough_—_if you are willing to bleed for the right to love and be loved._

* * *

Sasuke paused, panting, his dark eyes liquid with despair and frustration. He took a deep breath and suddenly, he couldn't hold himself up anymore.

"Do you even understand what you did?" he asked quietly, tiredly, falling to his knees. He raised his face to the darkening skies, his pale face translucent with his inner turmoil. His dark eyes sought the heavens before falling down once again, returning to a white slab of marble engraved with his brother's name.

"Didn't you think it's possible, that she would become important to me? So important that I—that I couldn't even live a day and not... not think about her? Worry if she's resting, eating well? If she's smiling? Didn't you... didn't you think I would fall for her, like you did?" he whispered.

A hand pressed against his eyes, trying to hold in the darkness welling within him. Sasuke had spent the better part of his visit yelling in the emptiness of the cemetery, punching the ground where his brother lay until his blood drew speckles of red on fading green grasses—now, he was fighting against the need to take off that headstone and unbury his own brother with his bare hands, so he could yell all his anger, all his loss, all his pain, all his betrayal.

Sasuke was betrayed—by his brother, by her, by himself, by life. Because despite knowing that she and his brother were together—happily, perfectly—that she was his almost family not in the way he had wanted to imagine, that she slept with _him_ and dreamt of _his brother_, Sasuke still wanted her, deeply so—broken eyes, imperfect smile, shady past and all. He still wanted her and he didn't care what she or his brother or anyone else would say and it was all so fucked up and _it hurt so fucking much it's hard to breathe she's his air it's hard to breathe it hurt it hurt_.

"Nii-san... I hate you so much," he murmured, his voice nigh inaudible, hiding the deep ache, the cracks in his heart. "Why did you leave me to her?"

_Why did you leave me to someone whose heart you already claimed?_

A broken plea. "I need her. Let her go, Nii-san, I need her."

_I can't live without her now._

Sasuke unclenched his fist and reached out, trembling, for the jasmines he had planted on Itachi's grave. With a shaky breath, he inhaled deeply and he fell on all fours, collapsing at the weight crushing on his heart. Tears stung at the corner of his eyes. A drop of blood landed on a velvet white petal.

"I'm sorry... but I need her more."

He slowly stood up, his pale fingers gently skimming his brother's name. With a last look on the rising moon, Sasuke left.

That night, she found him on his bed doing crossword puzzles and pretending that the bloody white handkerchiefs wrapped haphazardly around his hands were not bothering him. After a string of curses, she treated his wounds and dressed his hands in bandages, swearing up a storm. Sasuke sat quietly, listening to her breathe, breathing in her scent, wrapping himself around the blue worry in her eyes and thinking _it's worth it, you're worth it, it hurt so much and you're worth so much more_.

"You're a fucking idiot," she ended.

He raised his dark eyes, wanting to capture hers. She evaded with a cast in her eyes.

"I couldn't help it," he admitted.

She snorted and drew away, taking her warmth with her.

He returned to his crossword, his hands wrapped in the warmth she left on his bandages.

_I'm falling for you_.

* * *

Sasuke wondered what she dreamed about, on these nights when pain marred her features and sweat drenched her brows. Who did she fight against, who did she struggle so earnestly away from? Who could make her swallow her scream, who could cause her to choke on her tears?

And why, why wouldn't she cry?

Her eyes—they reflected the grief she wouldn't shed. They were bright only from suppressed tears, splinters of sorrow making them shine brighter until those who saw her thought they shone eternally from happiness. He himself had been convinced by those eyes, those beautiful eyes that showed the shards of the sky, the slivers of oceans, the pieces of glass spun from blue mists and shadows. After seeing how her eyes had been, though, Sasuke wanted to see her eyes whole once more. Whole and dancing and alive.

If only she would cry to him...

"Na—" he swallowed, cutting himself off. She couldn't know that he knew her name now. "Dobe," Sasuke said instead, gently prodding her awake. She whimpered and the sound shot straight to his heart. He wanted so much to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

"Usuratonkachi, wake up," he murmured. Clear eyes shot open, as if she hadn't been sleeping in the first place. Sasuke was used to it by now.

"Hey, why're you still up?" she slurred. While her senses automatically rebooted when she woke up, it took a moment longer for the sleepiness to disappear from her voice. He found it endearing, like a newly-woken feline, up on all fours with a predatory glint in her eyes, only to stop to curl a pink tongue in a yawn as her tail flicked lazily behind her.

"Can't sleep?" she asked.

Sasuke chose to answer with his own question. "What do you dream about?" he asked.

She sighed and sat up, black sheets pooling on her waist. "Not that it's any of your business, but it's none of your business," she said sleepily.

He glared. She frowned. "Teme, I don't dream."

Sasuke snorted. She wasn't done, though. "I don't dream normal dreams, is what I mean... sure, I dream, sometimes, but mostly I see memories."

The ensuing silence was heavy, full of unspoken questions and unheard answers. He glanced at her when she stood up and stretched, moaning as her joints cracked. He couldn't decide if he was disgusted or entranced. Sasuke settled for unhealthy interest instead.

"Off to bed," she muttered, making her way to the door. Sasuke knew she expected him to follow, and he also knew she expected him to put up a fuss because he never did well with following anyone else's orders, but suddenly he was tired of all the shit that stood between the two of them. He didn't owe her anything—okay, perhaps he was wrong in his assessment—and she didn't owe him anything either, but they were closer than familiar acquaintances now and a little more honesty would be more than accepted. Even if he wanted more.

But what were they?

She froze at the door. Sasuke belatedly realized he had spoken out loud.

"Well... that's kinda unexpected," she said, her back to him, her chuckles weak to his ears. "What, no more _'I'm too old to sleep just because you ordered me to'_ shit?"

She still owed him a cuff on the head for her comments in the video, he suddenly remembered, and so using his vastly-improved stealth, Sasuke snuck up behind her and did just that before she could dodge. It seemed awkwardness made her less conscious of her surroundings, and it seemed a cuffing could dispel the awkwardness that had settled between them.

"The fuck you did that for?" she growled, turning to glare at his shoulder.

Sasuke smirked in response. "For being a moron."

"So now you start doing it?" she groused. "And I'm not a moron," she added with a darker glare. He wanted to reach out and pat her head, she looked like a sulky puppy. Sasuke did just that and he chuckled at her scandalized expression. She pouted and he immediately looked away. Sasuke wasn't sure if he could stop himself from grabbing her for a harsh kiss and he didn't want to make things more awkward than they already were.

Without another word, they left Itachi's former room and went to his. Sasuke prepared for bed, the unanswered question suddenly hanging heavily in the air. He couldn't stop berating himself. He had probably ruined their night for being such a child.

"Don't worry so much," she chided him. He looked up beneath the fringes of his hair, and Sasuke must have appeared so pathetic that she reached a hand forward to smooth his creased brows.

It felt so damned wonderful.

"I'm sure we're friends, even if you're a bastard," she said, moving to sit beside him as he leaned forward to her touch. She absentmindedly drew circles on his forehead. He struggled from closing his eyes in bliss, grunting instead to show his not-so-grudging appreciation. "And maybe something else, but," she shrugged, "I think labels are too limiting, personally. So maybe..." she huffed, retracting her hand to rub her face, her visible blue eye trained on his chin, "Hell, I know you're important and that's all that matters. I think it's enough."

And that night, it was enough for him too.

* * *

"Did you love him?"

Her face, framed with waves of gold that had escaped her red laces, was softer under the sparse light from the stars dancing past the red curtains. Since that night he had asked his first question about her chest bindings, Sasuke always asked a question after their night together—not just to reach out but to confirm to him, to her, that what they just did was real and she couldn't hide from its reality anymore.

And it pleased him, always, when she responded—sometimes grudgingly, sometimes indifferently, but always answering, always there.

He took a silent breath, bracing himself for her answer. Sasuke wanted her to know that he knew, that he accepted. He also wanted to know if she still felt the same.

Red glinted on his periphery.

"Yes."

His heartbeat sped up. Knowing and hearing it for himself are two vastly different things. Despite being prepared for what he would hear, Sasuke could still feel the sting wrought by her answer.

She wasn't done, though.

"I do love him."

In the silence, something within him broke.

Sasuke turned away.

She was becoming more beautiful in his eyes.

It wasn't fair.

* * *

Something had changed between them. It had been three nights since he had asked that question and Sasuke, though he knew ruing over the past is a pointless preoccupation, couldn't stop going over and over that conversation and wishing that he hadn't opened his mouth and asked. Where before he felt a specter hovering between them at random moments, it was now an acknowledged phantom that vivified a wall between them that he couldn't breach.

It was his fault, all his damn fault. He missed touching her, missed the moments he could wrap his arms around her before she woke up, missed hearing the music of her pleasure. What he missed more, though, was her presence—because even when she sat by the shadows, slept by the bed, watched by the window, waited by the door, her heart wasn't with him and all he had of her was a shell.

He missed her so much.

Sasuke flung his bedsheets aside and jumped to his feet, his footfalls muffled by the dark blue carpet. He flung his door open and crossed the few feet to stop at the door he had begun calling hers in his mind. He grabbed the doorknob and paused, hesitating.

What could he say?

Sasuke closed his eyes and leaned his head on the door. Really, what could he say? It was his fault, he knew, because while he shouldn't have even asked the question in the first place, he shouldn't have felt slighted about the answer at all. He had no right to feel that way. Yes, Sasuke had a reason, but that didn't give him the right... and she didn't know.

He sighed. What was his point when he asked that again? It had seemed a good idea at that time...

_I'll apologize_, he thought suddenly. For what, he wasn't sure. Maybe for asking an intimate question? It obviously brought some memories she couldn't handle well. It was insensitive of him, too. She couldn't even grieve, wouldn't even cry... Was she holding out because of him? Because Uchiha Sasuke needed her to be strong? But he didn't, he just needed _her_.

Because she still couldn't accept in the deepest corners of her soul that Uchiha Itachi was gone?

With a decisive nod, he opened the door, his face blank, carefully empty of emotions. In the dim room, he immediately sighted her curled under the window, vermillion drapes floating around her like red maple leaves on their last flight in autumn. In her arms was a familiar red pillow, her nose buried in its softness, as if in sleep she could inhale its cotton and dream of lazy rolling clouds in a field of wildflowers. Her dark gold lashes fanned on her cheeks, shadows making it appear longer than they really were. Her pink lips were curved down, her tan brows slightly creased, and on her cheeks shone tears yet to dry in her sleep.

_She cried_.

He glared at the pillow, his heart squeezing in his chest even as he poured as much hatred as possible on an inanimate object. It was that pillow that began everything—her nightmares, her dreams, all brought to life by the lingering scent of chamomile that wound around her in her sleep. His only consolation was he hardly smelled that scent anymore, that scent that brought both love and jealousy in his heart, as that pillow, that bed, this entire room, smelled more of him and her now than _him_ and her.

And yet she clung to that pillow like it was her remaining thread to sanity—

To _him_...

_It's not her fault_, he thought. She didn't know she was hurting him. It wasn't her fault his brother found the happiness Sasuke had always wished for him in her. It wasn't her fault that she was Uzumaki Naruto, that she held Itachi's heart in her hands the way she now held his. It wasn't her fault that she was annoying, captivating, loyal, noisy, that she was exactly what Sasuke needed in his life. It wasn't her fault she still loved his brother.

It wasn't her fault but it still hurt. What his mind knew was different from what his heart did.

The wind blew, the curtains fluttering around her. He could smell them, jasmines. They suited her perfectly.

A strand of gold landed on her cheek. He used it as an excuse to brush a tentative thumb against the scars of her cheek. In all the time he had slept with her, woken her, he had yet to touch her odd facial marks. They were rougher than their surrounding skin but he liked the contrast of the textures. Like her. She was at times annoying and frustrating, at times endearing and caring. She was as loud as she was as silent, and the darkness from where she hid herself couldn't conceal the brightness he could see flaring inside her.

She was so gorgeous, so enchanting in her contrasts, and his heart melted a little when she leaned unconsciously to his touch, her features calm.

Sasuke paused.

... Why wasn't she stopping him?

_"It takes her a long time to sleep in an unfamiliar place, but it takes her an even longer time to wake up when she sleeps in the presence of someone she trusts."_

A small smile made its way on his lips.

_Trust_. She trusted _him_. Him, Sasuke. Naruto trusted _Sasuke_. She trusted him in her sleep, and he found this realization more heartwarming than her confession that she thought him a friend.

He recalled the past nights where she did the same and Sasuke wondered how he could have missed that. She had been trusting him all along and he hadn't noticed. He had come to fall in the familiarity of their rituals that it took three nights of her empty presence to bring this change to his attention.

Something stirred within him, something light, something happy. Maybe he had a chance, after all?

Sasuke almost drew back in shock when hazy blue eyes fluttered open.

"Ne, teme?" she asked in her sleepy voice, the one that made her sound like a child. "There a problem?"

His hair whipped around him as he shook his head. She hummed in understanding, her eyes drifting shut again.

"Can I—" he hesitated a moment. His reluctance vanished when a drowsy eye opened, "—sleep here?"

"Be m' guest," she mumbled—slurred—scooting sluggishly to her right. Sasuke sat gracefully beside her under the window, turning to his side to look at her. She opened another sleepy eye and he raised an eyebrow in response, daring her to ask him why he was staring. With a drowsy huff, she raised the red pillow in her arms and placed it on her left shoulder, before leaning into it and going back to sleep.

When her breathing had deepened once more, Sasuke raised his hand and gently wiped the dried tears on her cheeks. Then, sighing, he laid his head on the pillow between their shoulders, his black hair and pale skin stark against the red satin. Sasuke wasn't so sure what it meant, lying beside each other with the red pillow on their shoulders. Did this symbolize the ghost that had brought them together, or the ghost that would always come between them? Would that what they would be for the rest of their lives? Friends who could have been—something more, but for a red pillow, a white ghost?

As he drifted into sleep, Sasuke thought that perhaps, he shouldn't be finding meaning in everything. A pillow is a pillow and it would always be comfortable, more so when shared with someone precious to your heart. It's not a wall—and even if it was, a wall could be a bridge with the right perspective.

And then he realized, with the suddenness of clarity, that his brother would never stop him from reaching his dreams.

And so, with a peace in his heart, Sasuke closed his eyes and dreamed beside Naruto, a familiar red pillow weaving stories behind their eyes.

* * *

_Span the red bridge and close your eyes—dream and in your dream, love completely, purely, until the red string ties around the heart of the one you love._


	17. Seeing the First Break of Sunrise

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Words spoken in truth burned like the sun in the skies—it is hard to quench the heat they ignite in your numbed heart, impossible to stare their light directly with your searching eyes_—_but without the sun there is darkness and you cease to see the world around you. The light of these words reaches the blackest of hearts, their heat touches even the coldest of souls—with them the sun rises, with the sun rises a new hope._

* * *

"Run that by me again?" she asked. "Because it kinda sounded like you spoke to me in _English_ with a _Bri'ish accent_."

Sasuke raised a hand over his eyes, taking off his reading glasses. _This_ was his problem when he did crossword puzzles—when addressed in the midst of an engrossing puzzle, he spout words like a dictionary with its tongue set loose. Itachi had thought it was funny—his brother had asked once if he knew of the changes in the time slot of their favorite _sentai _show, and Sasuke responded with a deep frown and, _"I am in cognizant of this lamentable modification,"_stunning them both into stillness.

He was eleven.

After a hiccuping fit of laughter, his brother proceeded to ask him questions such as, _"What's your favorite color?"_ and _"What would you ask a finalist for Miss Japan?" _until Sasuke threw his crossword puzzle book at Itachi in embarrassment before crying out, horrified, _"Forgive me, I implore you!"_

Itachi hiccuped.

"Oi!"

An easy cure was to think of high-impact ordinary words, he learned later. Words like—

His uncooperative dark eyes landed on the soft swell of her breasts.

_Tits._

Sasuke promptly choked on air and coughed, hard, his face a flaming red as he thumped a fist on his chest. _Fucking. Damned. Eyes! And thoughts!_

"Geez, teme," she mumbled as she unhelpfully pounded a fist on his back. He coughed and glared and she threw her hands up in mock surrender. "What? I'm just someone trying to help you, bakayarou. 'Sides, whoever blushed while coughing? You've been thinking perverted thoughts, haven't you?" she asked with a grin.

He sniffed and turned away, ignoring her as he willed the damning color to vanish from his cheeks. Sasuke could sense her rolling her eyes and he stifled a smile despite himself. "C'mon, bastard. What's that you said earlier? Tell meeeeeee."

He gave a long-suffering sigh, smirking when she glared at the sound like he expected her to. He capped his pen and used it as a placeholder between his latest crossword puzzle book. "I said, that's very simple of you."

"Hey!" she cried out. "How's that simple? I think it's kinda deep and you're just jealous I thought of it first!"

Sasuke stared. "Dobe," he said slowly. "You think we're pieces of a puzzle in _"A Ginormous Puzzle." _Did you understand what you implied?"

"That we all have our own purpose. Or something," she replied. She grinned. "And you said _ginormous_! That sounds so funny, teme!" She immediately frowned. "And I could hear you using air-quotes, jackass."

He rolled his eyes, focusing on her first words instead. "_Exactly_. And that's what I meant. Pieces of a puzzle in _"A Ginormous Puzzle?"_ That's saying our sole purpose in life is to fit into the space we existed in _before_ we were separated. That we would only fit in a specific way, that there is a preexisting space where we could only fit in and nowhere else. That we only existed for one thing, and that is to fit in _"A Ginormous Puzzle."_

"But what if we really just existed for one thing?" she asked. "What if we were born only for one reason, and then we die after we did it?"

"Then how about infants who die mere seconds after living?" Sasuke asked back. "Are their only purpose to add carbon dioxide in the air? To be a cause of grief? Are they destined to exist in their mother's womb and nothing else? How about murderers? Do they only exist to kill? And what about those who never find their purpose in life?"

She huffed, a thoughtful frown on her face. "Well, that's why we have old people, don't we?"

"So do they live until then? Does it mean man can live forever so long as he doesn't know his purpose?" Sasuke leaned back on his chair, eyeing her figure by the window. "I never took you for a firm believer in destiny, dobe," he said, almost disappointed. She seemed so wild and free...

And yet he found he couldn't blame her, not entirely, because whenever he looked at her, Sasuke believed.

She shrugged. "Well, teme, not firm. Some things are just destined, I think. But maybe you're right, we're not just puzzle pieces. But sometimes, it's easier to blame destiny for the shit going on in your life. Frees you from the responsibility of owning up to your crap." Her eyes took a deeper shade, a faraway glaze in them. "And sometimes, you just fight and fail, and you believe that destiny wants you where you are and not even you can change it, and you accept because having your purpose given to you is easier than searching for your own and not knowing if you have one at all."

_Is that how you feel? A fixed puzzle piece trapped by destiny? That you can only do what you are **called** to?_

Sasuke stood up and, before she could react, flicked a finger on her forehead.

"What'd you do that for?"

"For being an idiot," he replied. "Believing in destiny is fine but it's not meant to control your life. The one who still controls it is you. Everything that happened in your life are consequences of your choices, and that includes being an idiot," Sasuke ended with a smirk.

He blinked when a smile slowly dawned in her features. It was the sunrise and Sasuke took a deep breath—her smile was stealing it away.

"Know what? You're annoying." She leaned forward and flicked her own finger on his forehead. He stumbled back, still stunned that he had made her smile reach her eyes.

"Never change, teme."

Her eyes glowed with the first rays of daylight.

* * *

Sasuke saw her raise her head, an eyebrow shot up in surprise.

"Er... what?"

"Movie," he repeated, this time with greater conviction. "We are going to watch a movie."

"... Okay," she said slowly, "I don't know where that came from. You don't strike me as the type to watch movies. And what's this? Bonding night or something?"

He misheard that as _bondage_ before he ran her words in his head again. Sasuke turned away, refusing to show the maddening blush in his cheeks or the scowl on his mouth. It was bad enough that he started this conversation first—it became worse when he stuttered out his movie invitation, so unused was he to asking a person on something as mundane as that.

She was right—he wasn't the type to watch movies. He preferred books over movies, but earlier in school, he overheard some guys egging their friend on to bring the girl he liked to the latest horror movie in town, saying something about how he would end up the knight to the damsel in distress. They then proceeded to testify that the movie worked wonders on them—end of story, the friend was bringing the girl he liked to this movie tonight.

Sasuke wanted that. He just wanted to be... a _hero_ for a change. Even if it's over something as shallow as a horror movie. And maybe, she would do what one of those guys boasted—climb on his lap and hide her face on his chest. And maybe he could assure her, see the dawning of the light in her eyes once more...

Sasuke looked down at his twitching fingers. It was too silent and it wasn't—really nice.

"Forget it," he said, his voice unintentionally colder. "I have to sleep ear—"

"Shh, I'm thinking of a movie," she cut in, "Haven't watched a movie in like, forever, see, and I've no idea what are good. Got anything in mind?"

Sasuke was really grateful for the darkness as it hid his relieved smile. "Know Saw 6?" At her blank stare, he went on, "Surely you've heard of the Saw series?"

"... Nope. Never heard," she admitted. "Is it s'posed to be good? I mean, it's on its sixth, ne? So people're watching it? What's it about, anyway?"

He wasn't so sure himself, in all honesty. He had the foresight to look it up online, though. "About a character who traps his victims in torturous situations instead of killing them outright," he replied casually. "He's called the Jigsaw Killer."

"What, he throws puzzle pieces at his victims and gouges their eyes with it when they can't find its fit?" she said, chortling. Sasuke didn't deign to grace this idiocy with an answer. He saw her pout in response to his silent dismissal and blow her hair out of her face with a muttered _"Jerk."_ He returned it with a snort.

"Come on," he finally said, taking his thumb drive from his desk and pocketing it. He had easily found a copy of the latest installment in the pirate network. "We can watch it downstairs."

"'Kaaaaay."

A few minutes later and he had hooked his thumb drive to the USB port of his TV, a state-of-the-art HD flat screen he hardly remember to use. He glanced behind him—his fellow audience was seated comfortably on his cream-colored couch, and he patted himself in satisfaction at his choice of furniture when he caught her bouncing lightly in enjoyment, her hands wrapped around a bucket of popcorn. Grabbing the remote control, he loaded the movie and sat a little ways beside her, prepared to enjoy the movie and the expected consequence of watching it with her.

Light flickered in the dark living room from the screen, skimming across their faces and threading shadows in its wake. Low murmurs and high screams floated from the speakers and Sasuke chanced a glance at the blonde who had been quiet since the movie began half an hour ago.

Her eyes were closed.

He frowned. Maybe she was just too scared to watch? While he wasn't particularly scared or freaked out, Sasuke discovered quickly that if he allowed his mind to float away with the situations the Jigsaw trapped his _test subjects_ in, his vivid imagination did it for him. So what he did instead was sit boredly and point out flaws in his mind.

A blood-curdling shriek.

_If you enjoy cheese out of blood_, Sasuke thought apathetically. He glanced beside him again. He was disappointed to see her eyes still closed. If she were afraid to see what's happening, why wasn't she clinging to him?

"Oi," he muttered. Another scream and he glared, annoyed. _Die already_, he thought, using the power of his eyes to will the man to implode in his screen. His eyes returned to the blonde. "Oi."

Drowsy blue eyes peeked open. "Wha?"

He blinked.

"If you've nothing to say, Imma rest my eyes again, yeah?" she slurred. She turned to her left and closed her eyes again, popcorn bucket still in her arms.

He blinked again.

She was_ sleeping?_

"Dobe," Sasuke called out, irked. She wasn't supposed to be _sleeping_. Was it that _boring_ to her? She moaned in response and he rubbed his temple. "Are you sleeping on me?"

The reply was clearly not thought well. "No. 'M sleeping on the couch."

He sighed. "No, idiot. Does the movie bore you?"

She replied with a sigh of her own, eyes half-lidded as they landed on the screen. "Maybe," she answered sleepily. "But it's more of I'm getting sleepy 'round you. Iunno, you're kinda comfy around and it's making me sleepy."

Those words warmed his heart, truly they did, but he wanted her awake and hiding her face on his chest and him stroking her hair to calm her fears!

They were supposed to be _bonding__!_

He inwardly sighed. Oh well, he should've known—she was unpredictable and nowhere near the girls he associated with at school. He watched her from the corner of his eyes as she valiantly struggled to watch, her expression unchanging with each torture the characters were forced to do to save themselves. He wondered what was going on in her head.

"You're not scared," he commented.

She flicked him an uninterested glance. "Should I be?'

"Girls who have watched this were, I heard," he said slowly.

She cocked her head. "Weird," she said after a thoughtful moment. With renewed interest, she leaned forward, her eyes sharper at the latest scene. After the scream had died, she leaned back again, curling her legs underneath her. "Not really. Seen worse. Besides," she added, almost as an afterthought, "this pig idiot's a noob."

At his clearly blank expression, she continued, as if reciting, "People who torture others needlessly, by their hand or not, depend on the pain of others to reaffirm their power to themselves, see. It's... hmm."

She raised a finger to her bottom lip, tapping it rhythmically. His dark eyes followed every movement. "Really powerful people are secure with themselves, y'know? They don't need others to show it or remind it to them, they just know. Unlike this dude here," she flicked the finger to the screen, "sure, he's screwed in the head, but that's because in the end, what he wants is control, power. Somewhere he knows he's just like all those people, powerless, and so he uses excuses to justify his actions so he won't end up like them. In the end, he's just afraid. He's probably known first-hand that life's beyond his control but he doesn't want to face up to it, so he does what he's doing right now.

"Powerful people know that power is fleeting and no one really controls it," she went on, almost casual, "Like building a sandcastle, ne? You work hard all the day to build the best sandcastle but in the end, the tide rises, crashes into it. This idiot would be the kid who throws a shitstorm at the tide because it can't stop itself from crashing into the shore, so he builds another sandcastle, and another, until he realized that building from scratch is a pain so he'd just bully other kids to surrender their castles to him and make them his own." She paused for breath then continued. "Now powerful people are the kids who cheer when they see the tide, because it's a great chance to start all over again. To see if they can build a bigger sandcastle, or a tougher one. Or maybe they'd just roll with the tide and enjoy the swim, because you come to the beach for the sea and not the sand anyway, ne?"

She gave a quirky smile. "So this Jigsaw? Can't build a sandcastle worth shit."

Sasuke slowly shook his head, amazed at this perspective. "What are you?" he asked out loud. She snorted and waved a hand in mock-dismissal. He returned to the movie, watching it with fresher eyes. He hadn't thought of torture that way before—yes, he knew it was, in essence, a show of power, but not like what she had said.

"You're willing to torture a person?" he asked. He was in the mood to talk more than ever—she made him pause and think, something only his brother had managed to do before. It was diverting.

"No one should have to," she replied after a pause. "But if it's needed, I am."

His brows furrowed. He didn't expect that. "Surprising," he commented after a short internal debate, "I thought you'd say no one should."

She nodded absentmindedly. "H-mm," she hummed. "But what most forget is that, sometimes, bad things needed to happen for something good to come out. Like torture? Frankly, I hate the idea of it. No one should have to torture and be tortured." Her face slightly turned to him. "Sometimes, you have to torture, even if you don't enjoy putting someone else in that kind of pain. In that case, for every hurt you inflict on another, a part of you dies inside."

Her eyes reflected the blood in the screen, silver in her eyes of blue. "A tortured person suffers and wishes to die, he gets his wish after a lot of pain—but he gets it, unless his torturer's a real asshole. Now the torturer? He's alive but already dead inside, and what's worse is, he keeps dying even when there's no soul left of him to die. He can't wish to be dead because he _is_ dead, and dead people can't wish and he doesn't deserve it anyway, for making someone suffer.

"The worst is having to torture someone you care for just so everybody else won't have to suffer."

Her words chilled him. The way she said them was a splash of ice on his veins. She seemed so casual with her words yet so sure at the same time. What kind of things had she seen, heard, experienced, to give her such views?

What was she trying to say?

_"I killed a lot of people to get in, Otouto."_

_"He and I are partners at work, teme."_

Did she know that he _knew? _Was she _warning_ him?

Sasuke drew a deep breath. "Will you kill someone?"

"If I have to," was the easy answer. She shifted to her right, her body angled to a stunned Sasuke. "If you have a serial killer in your hands for five minutes, will you do it? Kill him?"

His head spun. It was a moral question that couldn't be answered without sacrificing something. "I don't know," he admitted.

"You won't kill him? But what if he escapes after five minutes and kills again? Then the life of those victims will be in your hands, ne?" she asked, her voice mocking.

"But if I kill him, I won't be any better than him," he growled.

"But which is the lesser evil, teme? What are you willing to sacrifice? Your principles or the lives of others?"

He glared at her, allowing his displeasure at being cornered permeate the air. She snorted. "Life's about choices like that. Choices, like you said. When everything boils down to it, it's a matter of _have to_, not _want to_. Do you have to eat? Do you have to work? Do you have to fight back? Do you have to give up?" She shrugged. "That's life, yarou. If I have to kill to spare others, I would. You'll learn that when you become a detective. It's kinda like destiny in a fucked up way, I think."

"But there are other choices," Sasuke said, strangely frustrated. "I can have him locked up. There won't be any more bloodshed on anyone's side."

"Ideally," she added helpfully.

His dark eyes narrowed. "I don't like this side of you," he hissed. His chest burned at her last word, like she had failed him—it was so jaded it didn't suit her. His hands itched to grab her shoulders, shake her to reason and force her to look at him, look into his eyes and see him, tell her that life may have not turned out perfect for her but he could help her bear it. Because they were friends, she said so, and even more than that, he couldn't stop himself from falling harder and harder despite how he felt right now.

With such blunt words he disagreed with, with her truth confessed to him directly, honestly, Sasuke liked her less but he loved her more.

"So you like my other sides?" she asked with a teasing smile.

_Loved her more..._

She crowed at his frozen figure. "O-_ho!_ Silence means _yes_, te_me!_" she said, cackling.

"Idiot," he muttered irritably, disgusted with his pink cheeks. He almost jumped in shock when a finger poked at his cheek. He quickly batted it away but the damage had been done.

"Hah! You're blushing!" she exclaimed. "_Uwa_, the bastard_ likes_ me!"

"Shut up."

He wondered if it was possible to die of humiliation in his case and of laughter in the idiot's case. It took a long time before she managed to actually finish, but when it did, the silence was more comfortable.

So comfortable, in fact, that his eyes were getting heavy.

He heard a voice so soft he sleepily wondered if he imagined it.

"I don't like it either."

* * *

She was sitting on the floor beside the bed, her back comfortable against the mattress and its frame. He sat across her, under the open window, staring at her as she looked up at the ceiling. Her throat was a gleaming column of tan, smooth and sleek against her slightly opened jacket, tempting him to take a taste. He very much wanted to.

But their silence was thick, heavy, wrong. It wasn't time for such thoughts.

"Have you killed before?" he asked. Their conversation from yesterday wouldn't leave his mind, proving to be too great a distraction that even his teacher had called him on it. Not to say that it was the first time he had been distracted since he met this blonde imp, but it was the first time that an outsider had caught on.

He felt the wind ruffling his hair, saw it play with hers. A tendril of yellow twisted on her neck. He despised the wind for the privilege of touching her.

"Yes."

He knew it was coming, had been prepared for it, but not the reality of it with that one word. It was always so different, the preparation. When faced with the coldness of facts, the cruelty of truth, it would always be lacking.

A murmur. "Do you plan to kill Kyuubi?"

If she was surprised, she hid it well from him. He wanted to come clean to her, somehow. Admit that he knew a lot more, that he knew a bit more of her. Admit that it was killing him in the worst possible way, sitting across her and not reaching her.

He wanted to kiss her so much.

"He made me promise not to," she replied. Her eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. Sasuke wanted to kick her for a glance away from it. "But you..." she continued, her voice almost dreamy. He wanted to be the one she dreamed about, the only cause for that voice, "you can do it."

He straightened up, shaken out of his stupor.

_What?_

"I'm not an avenger," he said, his tone a bit colder than he intended to. "Nii-san taught me that nothing promises so much but fails to deliver as revenge, and I agree." His eyes were resolute. "He won't be happy if I kill Kyuubi to avenge him, and I won't be able to live with myself because of it."

"It won't be vengeance, teme," she answered with a lazy hand wave. She lifted her head from the sea of black silk. "It would be justice. Besides," a shrug, "they've sent Kyuubi after you and I can't really do anything about it but stand in front of you. I keep my promises, but I'll help you."

Her smile was bland. He itched to punch it away.

"Cops," he said. "We should tell them."

She shook her head. It was a motion full of certainty. Conviction.

Her conviction scared him. He wanted her uncertain of things like these. They were nineteen, barely adults. They weren't supposed to be certain of such things.

"When you become one, come after me, yeah?" she said. "You're the only one I'd give a chance."

"No," he said through gritted teeth. How dare she ask that of him?

She snorted. "Teme. When it boils down to it, I'm a killer. I _kill_. I have a killing weapon. I have a killing costume. I'm also told I have a killer smile when I do my killing. So when the time's right, come after me, 'kay?" Her grin was feral in the dim room. "Not to say you'd have an easy time of it. Just work hard then catch me."

He wanted to catch her so much but not in the way she was telling him. "No—"

"Make me your goal. I'd even leave a clue when this is over. That's helpful, ne?"

Sasuke glared with all he could because if he didn't, she might notice the way his eyes shone desperate from the heat burning behind their darkness.

_Don't you dare do this to me, Uzumaki Naruto._

"Then I'd finally get to rest. Maybe even get to watch the sunset one last time."

"We can watch it together, dumbass," Sasuke said, dark eyes pleading. "Don't say stupid things."

She closed her eyes against his words, against the unvoiced ones in his eyes. It hurt but she didn't make promises she couldn't keep.

And the sunset—the sunset was Itachi.

Sasuke swallowed. "But the sunrise is better," he added. He was babbling, a jet of water shooting from a crack in a dam. "It's... _indescribable_. You'll have to—have to see it for yourself."

She nodded. "Maybe."

"Until then," he continued, resolved, "you'll stay. Here."

Her eyes flew open and she began to laugh. "Is that a _threat_?"

He gave a vague nod. "Maybe."

Her laughter settled into a grin, her eyes lit up with several rays of light. Sasuke gave a small smile back, his heart practically bursting in his chest. It wasn't a promise but it wasn't silence, and Uzumaki Naruto never spoke unless she meant it.

Her gaze was still averted but it was enough, for him, to see the sun slowly rising in the blue horizon of her eyes.

* * *

_See the first break of sunrise against the cloud in her eyes, for your words are true and their truth enlightens. Brighten her heart with your light, touch her soul with your heat—your words are her sun and with her sun she sees, and she sees a new hope with the sun rising in her eyes._


	18. Flying with a Promise

**A/N: **Complete version in my site.

* * *

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_With love, every stumble is a fall and with every fall you fly—you are endowed with the gift of flight and you may reach past the skies, past the veil of black and white to expose the beauty deep inside. Every word is a promise carried on wings of pure white, and every touch of your wing leaves a little love behind._

* * *

It had been days since she had admitted her feelings for his brother, nights since they had slept together. Now, seeing her by the window, naked, wrapped in the gossamer whispers of vermilion drapes and silver moonshine, Sasuke wanted to tell her what he truly felt.

It was the first time they slept together since that fateful night, the first time since they slept together that she didn't went back to sleep because she had chosen not to. It was a night of important firsts and more than their significance, Sasuke was overcome by how _natural_ everything was.

Seeing the stars tangled in her hair made what they just did all the more real, all the more true—there were no shadows to hide from, no bedsheets to take cover from, no red pillow to stand between his reality and her dreams. She was naked and she was gorgeous with her faded scars and his vivid marks, and his mouth was too dry because the vision of her was so blinding and all the words he wanted to say had bottled up in his throat and she was so—fucking—_beautiful._

And he was afraid to breathe, afraid to speak, because even a whisper of a voice would spoil the tranquil beauty before his eyes.

Sasuke closed his eyes, her glowing figure forever imprinted in his mind. The strength of his emotions overwhelmed him. He remembered the image of her—her head tilted up to the night skies, her sun-woven hair tumbling past her shoulders, the red laces parting her hair threatening to come loose—and his heart swelled inside his chest and threatened to explode. It alarmed him, these feelings. He wasn't used to them. And yet, and yet—

He swallowed.

—he was utterly terrified but he had never felt so sure in his life.

Sasuke shifted, pushing up from his sated position on the bed. He could feel them all at the same time. Fear. Courage. Hope.

It was the sensation of falling. It was the certainty of flying.

Sitting on his brother's bed, black sheets barely covering the milky whiteness of his skin, Sasuke opened his eyes to the girl now watching him behind her closed eyes. Had she closed them when he had, perhaps to follow him in his dreams? Or maybe she was dreaming he was someone else, again?

He didn't care. Suddenly, it just didn't matter anymore.

His mouth parted. His dark eyes spoke. His lips moved to follow, his truth on the tip of his tongue.

She moved, a graceful flame on a candle. He watched her light cross the shadows. His stomach clenched. His heart raced. He spoke.

A kiss on his forehead and the silence sang uninterrupted.

She had never kissed him before.

* * *

It was a night he would never forget.

Sasuke was ready to go to her room when she came to him, a wandering phantasm at midnight, when silence stood between them, thick with expectations. He looked at her in unvoiced query and she raised her eyes to answer, reaching out, touching.

He was the first man to look up the skies and discover it blue.

She had never looked at him before and Sasuke had never seen her eyes like this, so clear like a spring hidden in a mountain of mists. The response in his body was immediate, resonating within him—the electric shock roused him to complete awareness and every nerve in his body stood taut with anticipation. More than physical, her returned gaze struck an emotional chord in him, forged a deeper bond between them—she was looking and _seeing_ _him_ for the first time, not a cast of shadow in her eyes, not a presence of ghosts in her depths, looking and seeing him not as _Itachi's otouto_ but as _Sasuke, just **Sasuke**_, and he could see _himself_ for the first time reflected in the blue waters of her eyes.

He was falling deeper into the sea but he wasn't drowning, wasn't dying, because he was trapped in her eyes and she was the air that he breathed.

She reached a hand out and he leaned forward, his body answering the question, the challenge in her eyes.

_Can you control yourself? Let me. I dare you._

He wanted to speak up but he might ruin the moment, shattered by his unusual sentimentality at the eloquence in her eyes. It was enough, anyway, for he knew she understood him far deeper than he himself sometimes, and she could read the nuances of his body as if she was reading his thoughts, plumbing the secrets of his soul, as if he was bare for all of her to see.

Sasuke suddenly felt something bubble within him—the desire to laugh out loud, even _giggle_. He was a fool, an intellectual reduced to poetry to bind her to his world—it still felt unreal that she was standing before him, that she was looking at him for a change. It felt like a dream. Could she really want him?

His heart pounded.

She _wanted_ him. Damn, she was _really _here and she _wanted_ him. _Him!_

How far she would go? Would she go all the way? She was completely awake, she was initiating it for once. What's on her mind?

Sasuke raised a hand, longing to touch her, assure himself, and he was surprised when she stopped him. He was clad in his boxers and he wanted so much to be naked in front of her, wanted so much to melt her with his hands, touch her and entice those sounds from her, feel her hands on his body and the reality in her touch. It was stifling in his room and he was aching to touch, to burn, to explode in fireworks, to return from the ashes and do the cycle again and again and again, aching to do all these to her and so much more.

But her eyes were stopping him with their hypnotic blue fire.

She gently pushed him down and he followed, too mesmerized by the intensity in her eyes to do anything else, too short of breath at the thought that she was in control, _seizing _control. The mere brush of her fingers burned his skin—she was _touching_ him, willingly, tenderly, her hand leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Her teeth nipped on the bare skin of his shoulder and a tremor ran down his body. Her hand drifted down, feather-light, teasing heat on his skin. He clenched his jaw against the curling sensation below his stomach. He had never been this sensitive before.

She wasn't doing much and it was driving him insane.

* * *

"Sasuke—"

His glazed eyes widened.

It was the first time she had called him by his name.

"Thank you."

His name was meant to live and die on her lips.

A strangled sob flew out of his chest. Everything was more than perfect and he wanted to fucking _cry_ like the sappy idiot he was. _Shit_, his sight was getting blurry.

"_Naruto_."

Her eyes, fluttering shut, shot open in vivid blue. The world froze and they were suspended on air, on the brink of flying, on the edge of falling. He didn't regret calling out her name. How could he, when he tasted heaven with her name on his lips?

White overcame his vision as vivid colors exploded behind his eyes. Her breathless cry was the harmony to his scream of completion.

Shallow pants echoed in the dark room, a room bathed in a loving warm glow, as if golden sprites have taken residence in each nook and cranny of the room, blessing the darkness with a flood of colors and light. It seemed impossible for this room to ever be dark again.

And then, a taunting whisper.

"Screamer."

Dark eyes flew open, narrowing at a foxy smile. The angry blush of red was hidden by his voice.

"I'll make _you_ scream."

Blue eyes met his, challenging. She smirked. His breath came out shorter than they already were.

"I've lots of stamina, Uchiha _Sasuke._ Let's do those positions you learned from your creepy sex-ed and we'll see if you can make _me_ scream."

He smirked back, insanely giddy, crazily happy. Two months ago and Sasuke would have never imagined that he could feel this way.

And he was very much achingly aroused once again. Her effect on him was devastating.

"You're on."

As their bodies began to tangle once more, Sasuke leaned forward with an almost shy kiss. His dark eyes shone with the purity of his smile, the sincerity in his heart.

"I love you."

She kissed back.

She was Uzumaki Naruto and she never said what she never meant. And he was Uchiha Sasuke and he never said what he never meant to follow through to the end.

"And you'll scream, do_be_."

* * *

It's fortunate, for the man choked up with emotions, that the most important things need the least number of words—they are the hardest thing to say and the fewer words are used, the more significant they are, because more words diminish their intimacy, the importance of the emotions and thoughts behind them.

Three words. It didn't matter if it was spoken while dreaming. They were three words and they were important and they were true to the one who spoke, and he was true while he dreamed as he was true while awake.

_"I love you."_

Two words. It didn't matter if it was spoken to a dreamer. They were two words and they were important and they were true to the one who spoke, and she was true while awake as she was true while she dreamed.

_"Thank you."_

And that one word wavering between dreaming and wakening, encompassing the most important thoughts and emotions that none could ever hope escape from. The shortest and most powerful word of all.

_"Goodbye."_

* * *

_Fly on wings dusted in the silver of starlight and moonshine, carrying with you the promise of love in each wing. Every bit of love left behind piles up and grows, and someday soon they'll be wings and they'll fly back home. Until then, soar, fly and love some more._


	19. Walking Past the Rain

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Behind the carefree roll of cloud is the somber drop of rain, behind the pure white of snow is the absolute black of night. Behind every straight path is the bend in the road, bringing with it the promise of both night and day. What is ahead is uncertain, what is beyond is unknown, but what is certain and known is the need for faith and hope—there will be clouds, there will be rain, there will be white and there will be black, but past the bend in the road is a treasure worth the long rainy night._

* * *

She's not coming.

The unspoken words echoed in the room, rolling around him like malevolent spirits waiting to be named to unleash its fury. He steadfastly refused to form those words in his mind, refused to let them past his lips to frolic like mad sprites in the cold moonless evening—her arrival was a question of _when_, not _if_, and he was careful to repeat it in his head.

Sasuke stood by his window, his face a perfect blank, his mind focusing on his impatience—better than the worry, better than the fear, infinitely better than the bitter sting steadily drilling at his chest—as his eyes sought to discern the darkness of the shadows from the darkness of the night. _She's coming_, was his mantra, because if he repeated something long enough, it would come true.

It just had to.

"She's coming," he said out loud. Sasuke would believe the echoes in his room.

He didn't know how long he stood—he only knew that every trickling second twisted in his gut. He shifted to his other foot, wincing as pins and needles shot up his leg, and waited once again. He was patient. He could wait. Sasuke was very good at waiting patiently.

Once upon a time he had wondered at the reality of his existence, going through the motions of living as the world turned on its axis. Once upon a time he had wondered if he was alive to begin with, if the monochrome silence he was in was his coffin or his prison. Once upon a time he existed with the emptiness of a clock, his actions unchanging, always moving forward until he was moving backward, his pace constant, his path straight to nowhere. And once upon a time she came, on a moonlit night in a cemetery, a defiant flame in the glaring darkness—and Sasuke realized that all that waiting he didn't know he'd been doing all his life was well worth a flicker of her smile.

It was the smile in her eyes that Sasuke last saw.

* * *

Hours. They spent hours knowing the secrets of their bodies until he didn't know where his skin ended and hers began. Sasuke had the pleasure of enacting his favorite fantasies on a very willing Naruto, who was herself uninhibited in bed and, like she warned, full of stamina. It was a delight to him—she wasn't a mere passive participant anymore, a lot of times even seizing control from him and _teaching_ him, going so far as to wear his reading glasses. He had always been more intelligent than his peers and Sasuke learned quite fast—too fast, for her liking, as she had ended up screaming like he had promised when he jumped her on his desk, blue-rimmed glasses and hazy blue eyes and all.

He might have to get his laptop fixed, though...

It was really fortunate that he lived at the edge of the village, though he had immediately realized he wouldn't have minded if others heard—the better, Sasuke thought, for others to know to back the fuck off her. Hell, he wouldn't even mind an _exhibition,_ if that would give every guy within a couple of feet of her shadow the _right_ idea.

Damn. He was finally showing his possessive streak...

Sasuke gave up first, too spent, too sated, to go on. It was a sweet defeat because he finally got to do what he'd wanted to do for a long time now—pull her into his arms and inhale himself on her skin. He smirked at the marks he had left on her skin, and she must have felt his smugness that she reached a hand back and knocked him upside the head with deadly accuracy. Then, she turned around until they were staring at each other, and Sasuke could see how much her eyes were wide and blue and full of smiles.

Her eyes were twinkling skies of fireflies—they shone so much and it took Sasuke's breath away. His heart was brimming with so much love for her, he felt it would burst at the seams. His eyes were bare for her to see how it ached him to feel so much.

And then quietly, suddenly, the silver shine in her eyes overflowed and fell down her cheeks.

Sasuke couldn't call it _crying_. She didn't burst into tears, or sobbed her heart our, or wept—it was simply like a cloud suddenly passing over a village, bringing gentle rain with it to cool a humid afternoon and leaving just as suddenly. She didn't look fragile or weak or vulnerable and the smile in her lips remained bows of pink against the honey of her skin, and when she spoke, there was no tremor in her voice, no falter in her tone. Had he not seen it happen before his eyes, Sasuke would have thought that nothing was out of the ordinary.

It hurt him as much as it humbled him—she was letting him see this side of her and Sasuke kissed her, tenderly, until her eyes drifted shut and the tears ceased flowing from her eyes. He drew her to his chest and caressed her back, humming under his breath with the quiet assurance that she could cry on him, always, something in him wondering sadly at what she had gone through to lost the ability to let go, and then her hand landed to where his heart was and he looked down to see her looking up at him.

Like the clouds rolling past on an early morning summer sky, the sun was rising once again in her eyes.

Sasuke would never tire of seeing it.

Then, as if she held the golden sands of Morpheus in the pockets of her fingers, she shifted and covered his dark eyes with her hand. Her smile was the last he saw and next Sasuke knew, soft gold was flooding inside his room and she was nowhere in sight.

He didn't let it bother him. He was too happy—Sasuke couldn't pass by his bed and not break into a grin. He had replaced his bedsheets with clean ice blue ones and a proud smile on his face, before skipping with as much dignity as he could down the stairs to fix himself breakfast. Sun rays spilled from the kitchen window and the floating dusts in their circle reminded him of the spill of yellow stars that were Naruto's hair.

Sasuke had spent the early morning eating his cereal and savoring her kisses with his vivid memory. He couldn't stop going over what happened last night, and it was only an accidental glance at his watch that informed him he only have twenty minutes left to reach school. He was ten minutes late to class—fortunately, there was an emergency faculty meeting that lasted fifteen minutes and he wasn't marked down for tardiness.

The day passed by in a flurry of daydreams of the special night they had together and what were to come next. Sasuke wanted to wake up in a room flooded with morning light and her warmth to his chest, always, and he decided that he would ask her to live with him from now on. He would carefully explain that he was worried about her, where she went off to, what she did and who she did it with, and that he wouldn't demand anything of her she couldn't give. He would insist it was more convenient for her, that it would be more cost effective, that it would give her a chance to settle into a normal life and even go to school. As a last resort, he would tell her, gruffly, that it would make him feel less alone.

A sound plan, he believed.

His teachers had commented on his improved appearance and even some of his friends had wondered at the abrupt change, with a particularly loud classmate announcing that _Uchiha Sasuke_ had finally gotten laid. Sasuke ignored them, as usual, discreetly making sure that his scarf hid the constellation of hickeys on his neck—he didn't feel too different, in all honesty, though his heart felt lighter and he felt like laughing at random moments. The difference was perhaps great to outsiders, though, because even his fan girls burst into tears as he walked through the lobby, wailing that their _prince_ had finally found his _princess_ and all was _lost_.

There was some truth there, perhaps, but to Sasuke, everything was in its right place.

He was really excited to get home, unlike before when he tried to do as much after-school activities as he could, conscious of the emptiness that would greet him when he returned. A second after the bell announced dismissal, Sasuke was out of the room and running to the parking lot, and minutes later he was pedaling away from school in his bicycle. For the first time, he contemplated upon the wisdom of getting his own car.

He had stopped by a ramen stand that a chubby friend swore to, and Sasuke bought ten miso pork ramen, take-out. He knew she would come at her usual hour and the ramen would be cold, but he could always reheat them. He had also dropped by the groceries to buy chocolates, a carton of milk, and fresh tomatoes. Lastly, Sasuke had his house key copied. He used the five-minute wait to scan his mind for a good movie to watch.

Returning home, Sasuke changed to his house clothes and cleaned his already immaculate living room. He had a light dinner and relaxed in front of the TV with its constant news of dead politicians and conspiracies before switching to a channel featuring the natural cruelty of dolphins. With the soothing unaccented voice of the narrator, Sasuke soon fell into a light doze.

He awoke, ten minutes to ten, and he hurriedly went to his room and stripped down to his boxers. Sasuke grabbed his reading glasses and crossword puzzle book then jumped on his bed. He realized that he forgot his pen and he quickly rose to get one from his desk, then jumped back to bed feigning a look of utmost concentration.

Then ten in the evening rolled around and she wasn't there. Sasuke thought she was probably late. She had never been late before but there's always a first time.

Ten minutes turned to thirty, then forty-five, and then it was eleven. He was pacing before the window by then. His radio clock announced it was midnight.

_She's coming_.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. His initial annoyance had turned to worry, which turned to uncertainty and finally, anger. Sasuke would clock her when she came. She better have a good excuse and he wouldn't accept _traffic_.

He yawned. No, can't sleep yet. She's coming. He had to wait.

_She'll come._

* * *

Sasuke woke up from a restless sleep, still somewhat standing by the window. He spied the lightening skies and glanced at his clock—it was four in the morning, the time he woke up to feel her absence. He recalled last night, their arms wrapped around each other, his chin on her hair as she sighed in her sleep, recalled his elation at having her willing and soft in his arms, the peace, the completion, and recalled the bittersweet feeling of finding his arms looped around a pillow imprinted with her scent. He knew in the deepest corners of his mind that she had left, again, at four in the morning, but Sasuke had been too happy to let it affect him.

Now, though—

He yawned and straightened up, his wakening eyes taking in the purple skies. He threw on a black shirt and a pair of blue sweatpants as his mind came to a conclusion. He swiftly left his house with a black jacket thrown carelessly over his shoulders, mindless of the chilly winter morning air and the light drizzle that had started to fall.

The only cold he could feel was from the fear in his heart.

Sasuke reached the cemetery and his steps became faster, turning into a full run. He only had one destination in mind and he hoped, desperately hoped, that there was nothing to be seen. That it was nothing. That he was wrong.

He stopped.

It was bitter, cold. It was all the dark things, the cruel things, the painful things, all the stinging void of the world.

It hurt.

He lifted his face to the heavens, at each drop of rain falling gently from the sky. He wondered, faintly, how she could enjoy the rain. Because here, standing in the farthest corner of the cemetery, under the light kisses of a winter rain with only a fresh head of cabbage on a headstone for company—

Sasuke couldn't.

* * *

Three days. Three days since that confession, three days since that rejection—because it clearly was, in light of the gray colors of that early morning drizzle, and his heart throbbed with ache when he sighted anything green—and he had seen neither hide nor hair of the girl who had claimed his fucking foolish heart even without trying.

It was seriously pissing him off.

His glare was especially deadly at the person who stood on the other side of his door, knocking like a child with all the time in the world. The first knock was a loud yell in his quiet weekend afternoon, and after his heart stopped racing to the beat of her name, he realized that it couldn't have been Naruto because she preferred _ninja'ing_ her way through the window and he suspected that she wouldn't give him the courtesy of knocking if she ever decided to use his door. If it were her, she would simply kick his door down and casually inform him that he needed a new one, preferably orange.

The knocks were getting especially more annoying, rapping in tune to some cursed music. His mouth was set in a snarl when he opened it, his glower chillier at the cheerful-looking familiar stranger waving a box in his face.

"A package for you, Sasuke," the idiot announced unnecessarily. It was the nameless cop who had arrived at his doorstep one day to inform him that his brother was dead.

No, not dead. Killed.

"Don't address me so familiarly," he snapped, not in the mood for politeness. He made to grab the small package but the man danced away from his reach, even chuckling when Sasuke followed. He growled when the bastard twirled around. "I'm not in the fucking mood for this!"

The stupid cop made a tutting sound, the strange mismatched eyes curving. "You shouldn't accept so quickly. What would Itachi say?"

He lunged at the man, enraged. "Fuck you!" he roared.

"Sorry, I'm taken."

"**Die!**"

He managed to grab the hand holding the package, grim triumph flaring within him. Next his face was digging on his doorjamb and it was such a familiar position that all the fight drained out of him.

_Damn it, dobe. Where the hell are you?_

"Maa, you have such a temper," the cop commented lightly behind him. "Complete opposite of reports about you."

His eyes widened.

"There, calmer," the man went on, "here's your package. Itachi left this for you."

_"Now if you're watching this, it means Kakashi had done his job... Another package will arrive in a few days and I want you to use it well once you have achieved your goal to be a detective."_

"You're Nii-san's superior," Sasuke said. "Hatake Kakashi."

The man simply gave him a lazy stare, not even surprised at his revelation. Now that Sasuke was studying the cop, he noticed a few things. The cop—undercover ANBU—had strange white hair that was a silvery gray at a deeper inspection. His right eye was a dark shade of gray, his left an eerie crimson with a scar vertically running over it. His mask covered half of his face and extended below, covering his neck and it seemed, even his shoulders, a dark navy blue which blended oddly well with his dark green coat, black trousers, and black shoes.

It was rare to see a cop in dress uniform. It was rarer to see a cop _in Konoha_. Since he and his brother came to this quiet village from Tokyo three years ago, Sasuke hadn't seen a police officer until three months ago.

"Done checking me out?" Hatake Kakashi asked idly. Sasuke replied with an icy glare, angry that this man always seemed to bring bad news, always come at a wrong time. He stepped back and made to slam the door in the bastard's face, but the older man straightened up and stopped him with a well-timed hold on his shoulder. He growled and the ANBU let go.

"Use it wisely," Kakashi said. "It's Itachi's favorite. His partner made it for him."

His head shot up, the cold anger in his eyes vanishing. "You mean Naruto?" he asked. He couldn't quite conceal the hope in his voice. "Do you know where she is?"

"No idea," Kakashi replied. Only the sudden intensity in the mismatched eyes stopped him from throttling the man, ANBU or not. "It's getting late," he continued, almost thoughtful. "Sleep well tonight."

_"Bad things tend to happen at night, y'know."_

Sasuke jerked forward. "Tell me," he demanded.

The cop gave a two-finger salute, his eyes curving. "Ja."

Kakashi turned around, his footfalls swift yet oddly measured. Completely at odds with Sasuke's heartbeat.

"Wait!"

But the man, seconds ago standing on his doorsteps, was just gone.

He returned inside and slammed the door shut. He swiftly opened the box, his fingers trembling from some unknown emotion. He almost dropped the box in shock.

It was a gun.

* * *

Some time between midnight and daybreak, Uchiha Sasuke made his way to the cemetery.

He barely noticed the distance, his mind only in his goal. He wanted to see the proof of her devotion to his deceased brother and maybe with it, he could start letting go.

Sasuke didn't want to. _Fuck_, how his heart fought against it. But his mind knew that if this kept up, her coming back to the cemetery while purposefully _not_ coming back to him... he knew it meant that whatever they could have together held no significance to her at all.

And _damn_, she should have rejected him outright. She should have flat-out denied him. She shouldn't have come to him, she shouldn't have given him hope. She shouldn't have stopped coming only to let him find out for himself that she was still coming to the cemetery, to his brother. To Itachi.

He shouldn't have—shouldn't have—

Sasuke sighed. It was doomed from the start, this thing between them. It was his brother who brought them together, and it made sense that it was still him who would tear them apart. He made the mistake of falling in love with the girl his brother loved, of falling in love with the girl who loved a ghost. His brother had never competed with him, had never once made him feel less of a person than Itachi was, but even when he was alive, Sasuke knew he was nothing compared to his brother. Now, in death, there was no way he could win against his brother, against a ghost—a ghost is blameless and could do no wrong, and creates the fondest of memories in a person's mind even when most are now simply rose-hued fabrications of a lonely heart.

Sasuke had been a replacement. He had known, at the back of his mind, that she saw his brother, felt his brother, dreamt of his brother everytime they were together even before she had confessed it to him. He had been a replacement and he had willingly allowed himself to be used, because he himself was using her to ease the ache in his heart, the void left by his brother that only she could fill. Because he was selfish and he wanted her, because he was weak and he needed her, because he was insane and he loved her. Because she was Uzumaki Naruto and he was Uchiha Sasuke, and she had taken a part of him and he wasn't whole without her anymore.

He chuckled humorlessly. What a fine mess he had gotten himself into.

_"It's not really the best for you, knowing me."_

She was right. And now, here he was in the place where he first saw her. It was a fitting end, he mused, that everything ended in this cemetery. Sasuke knew, though, that he was fooling himself. He could never bury the memory of her—she would become the ghost that he would always come back to, the ghost that he would always love. When he returned to the cemetery after this night, it would always be for her.

It was his brother's plushie that made him decide to drop by the cemetery. Sasuke had been pacing in his room like he had been doing since the first night of her absence, and a chance glance on his bureau caught the beady eyes of the plushie. He had crossed the room to pick it up, wondering faintly why it was on the left side when he remembered placing it on the right. Savagely poking the innocent plushie showed him an almost unseen run in its flabby stomach—Sasuke thought that the seams must have come undone a time ago. The thread was of a lighter color than the other seams and he realized that Itachi must have tried to mend it. His brother had always been mending.

Sasuke wondered if this visit would mend them or tear him and her apart for good. After crawling past the hole in the eastern wall, he patted himself down without thought before his feet carried him to his brother's resting place by habit. His breath unconsciously caught as he drew nearer, and he released his breath in surprise at what he saw.

The cabbage was rotten.

He crouched down, eyes disbelieving. The expected exhilaration at this discovery didn't come. He was too alarmed to be hopeful.

"Dobe, what the hell happened to you?" he asked softly. He couldn't stop staring at the vegetable—it was Naruto's symbol of devotion, the green cabbage, and since he had found her by the headstone, he knew she had never failed in dropping by with a fresh head of cabbage as a gift. It was her tradition that had never stopped even when they began sleeping with each other.

His unseeing eyes blinked at the sudden drop of white on a brown leaf. Another drop, and another. He looked up to the skies in childlike wonder.

It was snowing.

_"You're so beautiful..."_

Sasuke loved snow, loved their softness, their purity. How they cover all the beauty and ugliness in equal measure, until all what remained was a wonderland of white, vast and beautiful. It was a promise of cleansing. Of a chance to start all over again.

_"Like the snow, white and beautiful..."_

He could see the snowflakes dancing on her golden lashes, the rosy flush of her cheeks from the cold kisses of the snow.

_"So, so cold. But with the right touch..."_

He could see her arms spread wide, catching the snow with a playful tongue as she spun round and round, a summer angel laughing on her first winter night.

_"... you melt and leave marks on the person who touched you."_

He shook his head and stood up. This wasn't the time to dream. Something felt wrong, utterly wrong in this situation. It was in the icy breath of the night. In the unfriendly chill of the snow. It was in the layers of alarm hiding under flurries of frost, striking him to the core.

What once comforted him was causing him fear.

"Where are you?"

A metallic click.

Sasuke froze.

"Quite romantic, I believe," drawled a bland voice. "A rendezvous where man sleeps the dreamless sleep, with the first snow falling from the watching night sky. It couldn't be better if I planned it myself."

The voice came from behind him, from the tree Sasuke used to hide from when he used to come to watch her. He slowly turned around, his shoulders relaxed, his face blank. His mind recognized what was happening and screamed for him to run.

"But it wasn't up to me, after all," the stranger went on. Cautious dark eyes watched a figure step out of the shadows, a silver gun held by a big steady hand. A couple more steps and the stranger was washed in the soft winter moonlight.

A smooth chuckle. "Delivers, as always."

Sasuke knew who it was. The certainty was revolting.

"Madara."

The man raised a gloved hand, waving his index finger as if admonishing a child. "Now now, littlest Uchiha, you should not address your elder like so. This gun," he waved it around, "is loaded and I might be tempted to shoot you to remind you of manners."

He growled, hating the man with his every nerve, his every heartbeat. His parents' murderer, the reason his brother died. It was hard to believe at first sight—who could take a man in a one-eyed swirling orange mask seriously? And that cloak of black with red clouds, making its wearer appear a morbid doll in a long gown. He looked ridiculous, the bastard, but Sasuke couldn't laugh.

"Stop taunting him, Tobi," a cool voice said. Sasuke tried to look around his bastard of an uncle as unobtrusively as he could. Any lingering hope of escape died when he heard the second voice, knowing there was only a small possibility that he could get out of this one now. Why hadn't he listened to the ANBU? To her?

"Tobi is a good boy," Madara said in a childish voice. The bodiless voice snorted, clearly disbelieving. Sasuke didn't believe the bastard either.

"Kyuubi-chan shouldn't mock Tobi!" the overgrown child ranted, waving his hands in an agitated gesture. The gun drew a silver arc in the night.

_"I know of only one person they would order to kill me. Only Kyuubi can match me."_

His breath hitched.

_"Besides, they've sent Kyuubi after you."_

He could feel his body trembling. Trembling from a little fear, a great rage. It overrode his anger at his bastard of an uncle, nearly blinding him as red began to cloud his vision. Sasuke's fingers itched to feel that man's—_Kyuubi, the mother**fucker**_—neck around his hands, longed to feel his pulse speeding up in fear, despair, ached to feel the life seep out of him in minutes, in seconds. It was overwhelming, the desire to feel the man's blood soaking his white hands. Sasuke could feel its slippery warmth. Could taste its metallic tang. It would be _wonderful._

_"He won't be happy if I kill Kyuubi to avenge him, and I won't be able to live with myself because of it."_

He stilled.

_"Whatever happens, do not avenge me. I taught you better than that, Otouto._

Sasuke briefly closed his eyes. He couldn't do that to Itachi.

He opened his eyes and almost sighed when Madara half-turned to the shadows. The glint in the single eye, however, told him that he was being watched like a hawk, and Sasuke didn't dare move—not that he planned to, yet. The cemetery was an open field and no matter how far he ran, Madara would find him with a single bullet.

"Perhaps if you cease the idiocy, Tobi-tan," the second voice replied smoothly. _Kyuubi_, his mind supplied, feeling the hot anger buzz in his head. The voice was Kyuubi's, Itachi's murderer.

"Hn," Madara-Tobi huffed, before turning to Sasuke again. The change in stance was imperceptible but the manner was apparent. "I leave you my dearest nephew, Kyuubi. I am certain you will have some... fun tonight."

"Of course," Kyuubi said. "I did enjoy myself with the chase, after all."

_Chase?_

Sasuke could feel his heart hammering in his chest as Kyuubi lazily stepped forward, a confident predator toying with his prey. His footfalls were silent—familiar, like his voice—his body wrapped in shadows, despised by light. Kyuubi slowly stepped into the ring of light where Sasuke and Madara stood, into the ethereal stage crafted by the moon itself.

A hand in fingerless glove floated in the darkness, followed by an arm wrapped in black cloth. Next appeared a head of hair, gleaming an otherworldly white against the light of the moon, in lovely contrast with red laces disappearing to the darkness. Dark clouds rolled past—a shoulder in black, a torso in orange, a leg in orange with white bandages wrapped around an ankle, a foot in black boots. The foot stepped forward into the lit clearing, showing half of a face, its counterpart in the shadows. A face with scars, a curled upper lip, the head tilted down in careless disregard.

The head lifted up completely as the shadows melted away from the embrace of the light.

Dark eyes widened, swallowing a face that was suddenly white, whiter than the snow falling gently around him. No, this wasn't real. Impossible. This was a dream, a dream a dream a dream _a dream!_

_Wake up_, he pleaded. He couldn't even shut his eyes, so struck he was by the sight. _Wake up, **dammit!**_

"Why the face?" the person chuckled, eyes glowing with flecks of wild red against the still moon. "Weren't you looking for me?"

Sasuke couldn't speak. He wanted to but he couldn'tcouldn'tcouldn't_couldn't_.

Madara chuckled. "Do pardon his manners, Kyuubi. The ability to be mannerless spoiled brats are inclined to be innate in every Uchiha."

Whatever color Sasuke had completely drained out of his face.

Kyuubi. Madara called _her **Kyuubi**._

"Oh, I know," Kyuubi waved off, a cocky tilt on her head, "but maybe it's from surprise? He misses me, y'know," she said in a loud stage-whisper. "Three days without me and he's dying," she ended with a dramatic sigh.

_No. **No.**_

She turned to look at him straight in the eye. "Wazzup, teme?"

_Impossible unreal lies illusions wake up wake up wake up **wake up**_—

"Oi. Bastard, you in there?"

His breath came out strangled. Her pink lips curved. Sasuke wanted to deny it.

"... Dobe?"

She leaned forward with a heartbreakingly familiar grin.

"Bin_go._"

* * *

_Walk past the rain to the edge of the black night—beyond is the certainty of the clouds you had hoped for, of the white from the snow that you had yet to see._


	20. Catching Blood Against the Snow

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Red, the color of war, is foremost the color of life, stark against the white of Death's grim smile. Even winter, the little death, is a paradise of white, burying the world under layers of snow as it dares color to exist where it shouldn't. And it dares back, the red of courage, splashing vividly on white canvas, the red in your veins against the white in nature's chest, crafting dreams in the long sleep, breathing life in the short death, assuring the ending of the end and the beginning of a new start._

* * *

She laughed, a husky medley of breathless gasps of a man with another chance to laugh and live. The very air around her throbbed with heat, electricity, her presence overwhelming the darkness and pushing it away. Everything about her spoke of colors, of life, of the promise of dawn after enduring sorrow in the night—they were in her smile, in her eyes, in the very essence of her existence, winding around him like the scent of jasmines floating with the gentle snow from the dark winter skies.

She was an entrancing sight, a paradise of hues—of gold and bronze and orange and black, against the silent falling snow weaving fairy tales in the night.

And then her eyes met his, silvery blue oceans but for the tints of blood red, and the dream of the first snow night vanished in the air like flame against the wind.

Kyuubi—his _Naruto_, dammit, this was _his Naruto_, what the hell was happening?—raised a gun and cocked it with a cheerful grin. She looked like a child with her first toy gun, making shooting sounds against imaginary monsters in the shadows of her room.

"You know what? I hate that name," she said, giggling. The sound raised goosebumps on his skin—it was unnatural, like the glint in her eyes, so savage, so _red_. "Since you started calling me that, I've wanted to plant a bullet between your oh-so-dark-and-mysterious eyes." She leaned closer, her voice falling to a hush in the first ritual of secrets. "I still do."

Sasuke shook his head—against the tableau of her moonlit beauty, against the tapestry of her casual words—his shaking fists curling at his side, ignoring, deciding. This had gone on long enough, he thought, grasping at a last vestige of hope in desperation. Whatever she was going on about, this had to end.

"Naruto, stop it," he said firmly. "Stop this strange game and let's go home. You _owe_ me, you idiot," his even voice rose a notch, his eyes unwavering as he gazed into her shining ones, "for hiding from me for _three damned days_." He couldn't stop the tremor in his almost inaudible words, his voice lowered. "You owe me an explanation."

This had to be a game. This _had_ to be nothing else.

"Oooh, the Nile's rising!" Madara sang, before continuing with an almost fond tone that sickened him. "And the littlest Uchiha can curse too. So proud, so proud."

Sasuke ignored him, his eyes on the blonde standing across him. He took a few steps forward, not an ounce of hesitation, a hand reaching out in faith, in trust. He would believe in her—he could do nothing else but believe in her still.

"Come on, dobe," he said, his voice flat, his eyes pleading—_take my hand, let's go, stay with me, I believe in you, I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_—his fingers longing to feel hers enclose with his. "Let's go."

She threw her head up and laughed, laughter unlike he'd ever heard from her. A chill ran up his spine and his hand dropped in disbelief, at the icy touch of treachery ghosting in his veins.

_... Why?_

"Teme..." she purred. Sasuke's body jerked at the sound, an unconscious response she had evidently seen. Her malicious sneer made him feel so dirty and disgusting, the worm-infested earth on the sole of her boots.

"A formal introduction is needed," Madara announced with a noble wave of a gloved hand. He turned to Sasuke, who was warring between taking a step back and lunging forward at the condescending air of the man called his uncle, "Kyuubi, this is Uchiha Sasuke, son of my late younger brother Fugaku. Sasuke-kun, this is Kyuubi no Youko of the Jinchuuriki." He tilted his head in a mock thoughtful gesture. "I believe you know her as Uzumaki Naruto?"

Naruto grinned, drawing attention to the sharp glint of her teeth. She raised her weapon to Sasuke's heart, steady against the uneven rise and fall of his chest. "Nice meeting you again, Sasuke," she greeted coyly, her head cocked to the side. It hurt so much, seeing that familiar action—she acted the same but the way she spoke was different. Her voice was cold, her eyes hard. She was her and she wasn't at the same time.

"You look like you're 'bout to cry," she crooned. Behind her, Sasuke could hear that bastard Madara snicker. "Always been the emotional Uchiha, ne? Want Kyuu-Kyuu to kiss your booboo, Sasuke-_kun_?"

He took an unconscious step back and stopped at the smirk on her face. Sasuke clenched his jaw against the fear, the confusion, the anger, the pain—feel nothing, he needed to feel nothing, nothingnothingnothing_nothing_—and stepped forward once again, the steel barrel of the gun dripping ice over the hammering of his heart. He needed to think, just to _think_ because he would _die_ if he didn't. He needed his wits about him, harsh logic over mixed emotions. He knew, he just _knew_, that he couldn't die _now_.

His blank eyes watched her raise her left hand to her hair and pull at a red lace. He watched the silky gold strands, waterfall of sunshine his fingers had ran through—_no, stop that, don't think about that_—tumbling down her left shoulder, her other hand concealing her gun from where she had taken it. There was a gleam of mischief in her blue eyes and he inwardly braced himself, forcing himself to _think_, not _feel_—_"Hands behind you, turn around like a goood boy"_—but he couldn't stop his shiver when she stood behind him, blowing hot air on his nape as she bound his hands with the ribbon—_"Kinky, Sasuke-**kuuuuun**?"_ she whispered in his ear, and he could feel her grin when he shuddered at the images she evoked, at sharp teeth nibbling on his earlobe, at a swift dart of a moist tongue in his ear—and he despised her, that moment, despised her so much for the power she had over him, for the power she knew she possessed over his body, his heart, his soul.

_Don't. Just think, think of a way or you'll die._

Another ribbon fluttered before his eyes and suddenly it was dark, and he realized that she had blindfolded him too. He gasped at a sharp kick on the back of his ankle, forcing him down to his knees. He bit down on his bottom lip, staunching the sudden urge to sob—it was all real, now, the darkness complete. It was _dark_ and it was _real_ and he _couldn't see a damned thing_ and he would _die,_ he would die _blind_ to the world and he wouldn't even know he's _dead_ because there won't be light fading from his sight to tell him he was _dead_. He would die _thinking_ he's still alive, just _trapped _in a blackhole waitingwaiting_waiting_ for someone to shine a light where he was because it was _dark _and he was _alive_ but _he was_ _really dead_ and he would never know at all and he would be gasping and dying _all over again._

_Nii-san it's so dark it's so dark it's so dark help me someone please Nar_—

An arm wrapped around his chest, pulling him against a warm body. He turned around in desperation—_light, just a hint of light_—and he could feel softness molding against the hard planes of his back, and it was so wonderful and comfortable and familiar that he sighed and relaxed against it. At least it wasn't cold, he wouldn't be cold, it can't be too dark if it wasn't cold, right?

Like the sun, always warm, always with the promise of light—

Sudden cold touched the tender skin below his chin.

Sasuke froze.

—and everything, everything was so dark and clear.

"Teme..." she murmured against his hair. The steel barrel dug deeper. "Don't worry so much about the dark, now. I'm here to watch over you, remember?"

_"And I promised I will."_

"Damn you," he hissed, his eyes burning behind his blindfold. "You lied to me."

"Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke," she said, chuckling, "you can accuse me of all things, but_ lying?_ I never _lied_ to you, littlest Uchiha." He heard a thoughtful hum, could feel it to his core. "Y'know, these ribbons he gave me is so fucking useful. Fancy that."

Sasuke heard someone applauding somewhere behind him—_Madara_, his mind hissed—obviously gleeful at the unfolding drama before him. "Kyuubi, I never should have doubted you," Madara declared. He could feel her lips curving, brushing against his scalp from where she still held him to her body. No, he wasn't supposed to notice things like these, stop it stop it stop.

"I thought you have betrayed me like his foolish older brother, you've taken so long in this mission. You did enjoy building things up, na, Kyuubi-_chan_?"

"You wound me," she said in a throaty voice, her words vibrating against his spine. "And it's just three months. You missed me that much, Tobi-_sama_?"

Bile churned violently in his gut. The heat stinging behind his eyes was painful, bitter.

"The Uchiha kyoudai fall through their eyes," she went on. He could hear the smirk in her voice, feel the arrogance of being proven right. "Typical men, so _hungry _for sex."

His stomach heaved wildly. Sasuke swallowed hard, forcing the acid taste of his vomit at bay. He couldn't show any more weakness.

"Take care of him then, Kyuubi," Madara commanded. He could feel the bastard's smirk and Sasuke snarled. "Give him the wildest night of his life. Ja."

Despite his steadfast hold on his control, his hips bucked against her low moan of agreement. Misery washed over him, humiliation at how easily she could break him. Sasuke inhaled deeply, forcing down a shameful gasp at her husky chuckle on his ear. She was right, he was no different, he was like every other man, like his older bro -

He stiffened. _Nii-san._

_"I have another precious person...Maybe you know her?"_

She had _seduced_ him. Made him _fall_ for her. _Love_ her.

_"Her name is Uzumaki Naruto and she is a very unpredictable girl."_

White fury overwhelmed him, almost stealing his breath away. He held on to this rage—better rage than _hurt_, than crippling _pain_—the darkness replaced by flashing red behind his eyes. She was a cruel bitch, a fucking _whore_, capturing Itachi's heart before killing him the way she did with him, the way she's planning to do with him. How _could _she? How could she be this _cold_, this _heartless_?

Sasuke gnashed his teeth, this time against the rage prickling at his eyes. _How could she?_

His voice was steady, low. Dark.

"Motherfucking _bitch_."

A snicker. "Oh, where you there when I did your _mom_, Sasuke-_kun?_"

He spat, hoping it hit her. From the amused snort further increasing his fury, it didn't.

"Did you think it's _so hot_ you wanted it for _yourself_?"

He jolted at a hot hand trailing inside his shirt, the touch almost—almost _caring_. Sasuke clenched his jaws and concentrated on breathing evenly, on sitting still. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of any physical reaction that would tell her he wanted this. He hated this, he didn't want this, he loathed this with every fiber of his being.

Even if his traitorous body did.

He accidentally let out a gasp when the hand reached his chest and twisted his nipple. He unconsciously arched against the knowing hand, giving an undignified squeak when a hot mouth descended on his neck and _sucked_.

Sasuke jerked around wildly, trying to get _away_, to get _closer_, groaning when a knee rubbed harshly on his half-formed erection. He was being assaulted from all sides and the blindfold was heightening his senses—the cold metal under his chin, the hot mouth on his neck, the punishing twist on his nipple, the rough friction on his groin, the jasmines in the air. He cried out in denial when the knee stopped heavily on his cock.

"So spoiled," Naruto murmured against his jaw as she kissed up to his ear, her voice laced with sin. He shuddered. "So much like your brother. Must make you proud, hmm?"

The words were a splash of ice on his heated skin.

"_Fuck._ **_Off!_**" Sasuke yelled. He started to kick wildly, kicking away the lust, the shame, the familiar warmth he wanted to sink into even now. Damn her, _damn_ _her_ for toying with him like this! Why, _why?_

"Why?" she asked softly, her voice coming from beside him. Even now his body swayed close to her, wanting to be with her. "Simple. You're my mark. It's business, nothing personal." She yanked savagely at his hair, forcing his head to tilt back. Snow fell on his exposed throat. "Even though your mom killed _mine, _this is purely _business_. Even though I _despise_ the blood running through your veins, _hate_ the very air you _breathe_. _Curse_ the very fact of _existence_ of the Uchiha _name_." He shuddered helplessly when her teeth descended on his neck once more, the snow melting against the wet heat of her mouth. "I even work with your _uncle_, see?"

She released him with an obscene _pop_. His shallow pants echoed in the tranquil winter night.

"Just business, my pretty pretty mark," she whispered in his ear before abruptly letting go.

Sasuke swallowed. She's lying, she had to be. She wouldn't have—wouldn't have _touched_ her like she did, right?

"All those times—Those times you said you're watching over me... that's because I'm your target?" he asked lowly.

A nonchalant answer. "Uh-huh."

_No._

"Those times you had nightmares? When you _dreamed_ of my _brother_. Were those lies?"

"H-mm."

_No, no._

Sasuke could feel the sharp stab of desperation from where he had tried to bury it, loosening his tongue with every spike of pain. "Those times... you're in my arms? When you _came_ to me?" He inhaled sharply. "When you _kissed_ me?"

"Yep."

It had been happening since he saw them, standing close to each other, guns in their hands with the snow kissing the air around them. He felt it acutely, now, and he couldn't stop it anymore.

His heart, breaking in his chest.

"I _love_ you," Sasuke choked out. "How _could_ you?"

"Ha!" He blinked at the sudden assault in his eyes from the blindfold pulled down to his neck. Eyes cold as ice and sharp as flint held his, their gaze judging in their emptiness. "You don't _love_ me. What you have, that's just something any puppy have. Grab a stray from the street, shower it with pats and treats and it will worship you forever." Pink lips curled into a sinister smile. "That's _you_, teme. A puppy. I lavished you with _attention_ and let you _fuck_ me every time you want to. Stuff you've never had before, ne?

"Do you know what I hear when you say that?" She didn't let him answer, her eyes glinting with a blade's smile. "I love you because you let me _fuck _you while you _sleep_. I love you because you gave me my first _blowjob_ and you swallowed my _jizz_. I love you because you let me eat your _pussy _and fuck you with my _fist_. I love you because you're one helluva _fuck_ and you let me _screw_ you every way I could _imagine_. I love you because you don't mind I can't even be bothered to pull on a fucking _condom_ so you can carry my _spawn_ some time we're not so _lucky_. I love you because my brother's been _inside _you, something he's never done to _me_, and you're the _closest_ that he can _fuck _me and _I_ _fuck him when I fuck you._"

Sasuke spat in her face, his face white with fury, revolted and enraged to the depths of his soul. She didn't even blink.

"Why, want some more?" she asked, her face an innocent blank. Her lips split into a feral grin. "I think you'd like it very much if it was your cum on my face now, ne, Sasuke-_kun_?"

His eyes briefly closed in the darkness of his rage. When they opened, they were a bottomless abyss with glints of dangerous crimson, stark against his bloodless face. Before he could do anything else, however, Sasuke was pulled roughly to his feet and he braced himself at what was to follow, his mind already plotting a possible response. He stiffened when he was abruptly turned around and hands made short work of the red ribbons binding his wrists. His brows furrowed in confusion. What was she up to?

His eyes narrowed. Another trick, another lie. She was playing her mind games again, damn her—

Soon he was released. He flexed his fingers, working blood back into his hands, eyeing the silent blonde warily. Sasuke flinched in utter surprise when a gun was suddenly shoved to his hand. He almost dropped it in shock.

"I'm Kyuubi no Youko," Naruto said in a monotone. "Itachi was my partner. I killed him. Now," she stepped closer, "we'll play a game. I'll give you a headstart with one shot just as I did with him."

His mouth hung open. _What the—Did she_—

He stepped back, his fingers dropping the gun, angry at her, angry at himself for being angry at an offer that would put him at an advantage. "What the fuck are you playing at?"

Her lifeless gaze scared him more than what she had ever said or done. "I killed your brother, remember?"

Sasuke flinched at the bald statement. She bared her teeth in a grin, her eyes glowing with inhuman savagery. "Do you want me to tell you _how_?"

_"Do you plan to kill Kyuubi?"_

He took a step back.

"I tortured him until he was _begging_."

_"He made me promise not to."_

She stepped closer to him, invading his space.

"Begging for me to _end_ his pathetic life."

_"It won't be vengeance, teme."_

Sasuke stared blankly at the weight on his hand.

"Do you have _any_ idea—"

_"It would be justice."_

His hand shook at the gun pressed almost tenderly on his palm.

"—how sweet it is to fuck a dying man?"

Metal clattered to the ground as his hands shot out in blind rage. _Make her shut up_, his mind whispered. _Hurt the bragging bitch. Give it to her._

A dark smile curled on his lips. His hands squeezed tighter around the slim neck.

_Kill._

His smile grew as she gasped for breath, clawed for air. _Let her die_. _Watch the life draw out of her lips for the very last time._

The snow was gorgeous beside her wide eyes.

_Kill_.

Blue blue eyes he loved with all his heart.

_"Whatever happens_—

His grip slackened.

_"_—_do not avenge me."_

His sight abruptly cleared.

_"I taught you better than that, Otouto."_

He looked down in horror.

_What have I done?_

Sasuke dropped her in shock and his knees buckled. He fell down in a shaking heap, backing away in panic when dull blue eyes turned to him—she was coughing as she held her own neck and he could see the red prints of his hands around her throat. He shook harder. He swallowed his vomit.

_I'm not an avenger. I'm not a murderer. I'm not a killer. I'm not I'm not I'm not_—

His breath hitched at her body pressing above him. Her cold eyes looked down at him in revulsion.

"You're so _weak_," she hissed. Sasuke couldn't stop trembling. "Spineless, _pathetic_. How do you expect to protect people when you can't even _shoot_ your brother's _murderer_?"

"Shut up," he croaked."Shut up."

Her hot breath caressed his cheek. He was cold, so cold. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare.

"Itachi was _crying_, teme," she whispered, "while I sucked him _dry_ and _fucked_ him with my _gun_."

He squeezed his eyes shut. He covered his ears with his shaking hands.

"Groaning in pleasure, screaming in pain—he was _so fucking hot_ with the blood from his _chest_ and his _ass_ and his _dick_ that couldn't _come_ anymore."

_Stop it!_ his mind screamed. _Stop it stop it stop it stop it!_

"And his eyes! How they clouded with pleasure, pain—and hate too!—because _he loves me so fucking much_ and he could only _beg me to stop_—"

"_Shut up!_"

"It was _so_ funny, bastard."

"_Go to **hell**!_"

"I killed _Itachi_, Sasuke," Naruto whispered in his ear. Her cold lips curved into a cruel smile. "And I enjoyed every minute of it."

"**_DIE!_**"

A shot rang out.

Warmth landed on his cold cheek. Was it raining? It couldn't be the snow. It was too warm.

"Sasuke."

Dark eyes opened, dilated in shock.

"You missed, teme," she said calmly. Blood dripped steadily from her cheek. The bullet had grazed her scar. "Can't you do anything right?"

He felt warmth enclose his hand. Opaque blue eyes bored into his, twin mirrors of blue reflecting, not showing. A snowflake landed beside her wound, a white butterfly on a red bloom.

Uzumaki Naruto would always be beautiful in his eyes.

"It's as simple," she guided the gun to her chest, pressing on his finger around the trigger, "as this."

He opened his mouth in a soundless cry. A second shot rang through the air.

"Now, Sasuke," she gasped out. Blood dribbled down her pink lips. They shone brightly against the snow, against her tan face, against the cracks in the mirror of her icy blue eyes.

She mesmerized him. The silver blade reflecting all shades of red. The burst of sudden light in this lonely winter night. The reality of all his dreams against the nightmare she spun with her smile.

She was so gorgeous and he wanted to hold her forever.

"_Run_."

Sasuke scrambled to his feet and ran.

He collapsed minutes, hours, years later, a pile of naked grief—for his brother, for Naruto, for himself—shaking and crying and retching until everything was no more.

* * *

_Until then, fight, let the blood in your veins flow, warming you against the cold of the silent chill of snow. Catch life with your blood against death in the snow, dream of the ending of the end and the beginning of a new start. In dreams exist the colors in the canvas of white._


	21. Traversing the Distance to Blue

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_It is hunger, the most basic of man's need, that drives him to do what he does. Whether for food, for water, for knowledge, for love, man's hunger is unending and a force to reckon with. To a man in its painful clutches, there is no good or evil—there is only hunger, and food; thirst, and water; wanting, and knowledge; needing, and love; and the distance he must cross to fulfill his duty to himself—until he is content, until he is happy, until the sun breaks through the blue skies heralding another day._

* * *

Sasuke woke up gasping for air.

"Maa, maa."

A gloved hand rubbed on his chest, a tangible thread of light attempting to impinge the dark void. He reached blindly for that unseen vision called hope, seeking with the hands of one who had none—he was drowning, drowning in red snow, choking on blue blood forced viciously down his throat. He was drowning and choking, shaking so hard, so much, and it was all just a damned dream and he wanted to fucking cry in relief.

_A damned dream, just a dream._

"Here, drink this."

Sasuke automatically accepted, his mind still in the mire of his own creation as his body acted on someone else's will. A glass of water landed on his parched lips, a sudden cold kiss stolen without thought. His hand, as if weary from the weight of half-emptiness and half-fullness and the line trying to discern between the two and failing, tilted fully and water—viscous, metallic, melted steel white laces and bright orange blood on black red snow—shot down his throat with the rage of the Furies on a treacherous mortal, swift and cold and unforgiving.

He choked, panic clawing in his mind, a wild hound tearing through his sanity—_no, it's happening again, I'm drowning, help me!_—and he sputtered, coughing at a sudden weight settling heavily on his back, pulling him back to the dismal gray shores of reality. His coughing lessened, Sasuke drank the remaining water slowly, fearfully, disconcerted still at the disturbing flights of his thoughts—_idiot, you're paranoid—_before landing anticlimactically on a glass-spun world, his mouth grimacing at the aftertaste.

"You threw up," the same voice drawled. He was glad for the consistency. He needed it now. "Everything's bound to taste like vomit if you don't wash your mouth."

It was then that Sasuke became aware of his surroundings. He looked down—he was lying on an ordinary single bed, creased white blanket over his lap and a white pillow behind him. His eyes traveled around, noting the bareness of the room, the absence of personal effects and personality. The room was a dull off-white, not blinding but not comforting, simply existing as a tablet for future colors to conceal its sorry existence. A lone door in brown stood as a welcome break to the monotony, the first shot of earth from the infinity of weightless clouds, planting him firmly on terra firma until he could rest, until he could extol the virtues of flying once more.

Until one day he learned that the higher he flies, the harder he falls.

Unsteady dark eyes landed on his right. A man was sitting on the chair next to the bed he reclined upon, an orange pocketbook held by a steady hand. He couldn't see the cover. Something within him whispered that ignorance is bliss.

_Hatake Kakashi_, his mind supplied. Sasuke took note of some useless information, piecing a puzzle in his mind in his bid to walk further down the shore. A silver gray strand askew, hovering over the gray eye. Black turtleneck in pure cotton, sleeves rolled up an inch above his elbows, blending with a mask that persisted in covering the lower half of a face. Legs crossed in careless disregard, a temporary desk for the pocketbook in a pale hand, a dark green flak jacket its tablecloth. An uncomfortable-looking wooden chair, above which sat a man with the air of ease and comfort.

_Hatake Kakashi_.

He suddenly sensed the mismatched eyes observing him. Sasuke drew an inch back. He felt defensive. What the hell was this man doing here? And where was he, exactly? What happened?

"I found you outside the Uchiha cemetery," the ANBU said, answering his unvoiced question. The eyes had a steel edge, one an unpolished flint, the other unclean blood. He decided he liked their grim colors. Reality's eyes."You passed out on your vomit."

Cemetery.

... Underworld?

_React. Don't think._

Sasuke frowned, disgusted, and sniffed at his shirt, waiting for the noxious assault. He didn't smell anything, though, until he looked down and realized the shirt was unfamiliar. He had no red shirts. Too bright for his taste.

He wasn't bright enough for red.

"I'll send the laundry bill tomorrow," Kakashi said off-handedly and then he leaned back, arms crossing over his chest. "What happened?"

_"Run."_

Everything rushed back with clarity so sickening it knocked the breath out of his lungs, his stomach churning with the violence of a psychopath out for blood. Sasuke clambered to his side, flailing in the thick murky waters of his mind, and threw up—throwing up bile, blood, perhaps his stomach, his heart, anything within that was tearing him apart, tearing him to unrecognizable pieces. Tears stung his eyes at the raw ache in his throat, at the cold burning knot in his stomach, at the memories of the night he wished to forget repeating over and over and over in his head. There was no comfort, no relief. It wasn't a dream. He was still drowning.

_Styx._

The river of unbreakable oath. The river of hate. One hates people who break their promises. The more a thing is loved, the more it is hated.

_"Run."_

His heart hurt, so much. It was so tempting, this lurid vision, of knifing himself in the chest and reaching inside, elbow-deep in his own blood, red and warm, crushing his beating heart with his own bare hand. The promised relief from this white-hot pain was staggering, dazzling.

_Elysium._

Sasuke threw up again.

The ANBU merely stared at him, ignoring the vomit now decorating his dark pants. Sasuke was too caught up in the tangled web of his emotions to notice this consideration.

"I take it you're not ready," Kakashi said in a mild voice. Sasuke stared at him uncomprehendingly, his thoughts stuck in the cemetery with its first taste of snow, his mind flashing images of her in the shadows, red ribbon on his eyes, hot hands on his body, voice low and dark shaping words to stab and break and condemn a mother's son to hell. Her eyes, her smile, they ran through his mind, broken records churning shrieking melodies in repeat, jumping to the ending and hopping to the beginning, sinking in the middle and returning to torment on a part it so desired.

A chorus of screams of the wicked. The dead. Unrepentant, relentless.

_Tartarus._

Sasuke longed to cover his ears but he knew the voices were in his head. Silence would always be beyond his reach, a fruit as near as illusion and as far as truth.

And suddenly the whiteness of the room was suffocating. Sasuke could see blood dripping down the walls, cascades of crimson pooling on the floor, on the chair, on his bed, climbing up to wrap around him, vines of false warmth winding around his flesh. His brother's blood. Hers. The blood on his cheek. On his hand.

A crushed wing of a white butterfly floating on a shiny red pool.

He could vaguely hear screams. His heart ached for the raw pain he could hear, of someone burned alive, skin curling, crisped, the devil's food. It ached. No one should have to create a sound like that, a unison of perfect fear and perfect grief, shrieks of pure hysteria and pure rage against the pauses of keen despair. All the songbirds of the world in one burst of note, a cacophony wrought of a thought that all that is beautiful must be together. They are always so beautiful, emotions. Even those that cause extreme pain. Something so ugly can only be beautiful.

_Furies._

Only things of beauty could hurt.

_Does it please you when you listen to their screams?_

Beautiful screams. They hurt so much to hear. So ugly, so pained.

_Or does it pain you because it's beautiful?_

His head flew back, a rubber band stretched taut and abruptly released. Dark eyes blinked. He was on the shore. Gray. Hadn't he walked far already?

"Sasuke," Kakashi said in a tight voice. The screaming had stopped. Sasuke felt pain blossom on his cheek. Does it hurt the earth when roses bloom?

_Don't think._

"Snap out of it."

Wild dark eyes blinked anew as comprehension slowly dawned in its depths. He looked down, rapidly blinking away the miasma of thoughts, waking up finally far from the shore, his hair covering his eyes, his fists curling on his lap. He needed to focus.

_"Can't you do anything right?"_

His head shot up.

_"It's as simple_—_"_

Fear, oppressive and dry, strangled his heart.

_"_—_as this."_

It overrode fury, hate, confusion, the feelings of loss and betrayal.

_"Now, Sasuke..."_

He had hurt her. Hurt her after vowing to himself that he wouldn't. And she was probably still in the cemetery bleeding on the grass and the snow, her blood seeping through the cracks of the earth to water the resting seeds, her lips parted as she gasped for air, for life. He had _hurt_ her.

Suddenly he didn't care and he cared for her again. Treacherous heart. How was he supposed to live without her when he kept coming back? How was he supposed to deliver justice for him, his family? How was he supposed to do what he realized he must do?

But he had hurt her. He _hurt_ her.

_"Run."_

He was supposed to be her air. He was supposed to teach her to breathe only through him.

"Where is she?" Sasuke asked, his own voice unfamiliar to his ears. The mismatched eyes were unreadable, but perhaps it had more to do with his own flaring emotions that he couldn't understand the story in those eyes. He was sifting through the confused tangle of his own that he couldn't read the stories in anyone else.

His story. Hers.

_Ours._

At the corners of his mind, he hated her. Hated so much how he loved her, still loved her, how his heart still beat for her despite the ultimate betrayal she had delivered with a smile. Sasuke wanted to stop but he would die if his heart stopped beating.

And he couldn't die. Not yet.

He still needed her to need him.

"She's in a holding cell," Kakashi replied after a long tense silence. He released a breath he didn't know he was holding. The answer meant she was alive.

Alive for him to extract a proper vengeance from.

"How is she?"

So why couldn't he stop his wayward tongue?

"You shot her between the ribs," Kakashi replied. The man leaned forward, an elbow on his knee and a palm cupping his chin. "You tell me."

Sasuke could feel blood dripping down his cheek. It was warm. Like red tears.

He hurt her and it hurt so much.

"I didn't want to," he choked out. He rubbed his cheek, his hand shaking. Warm, too warm, he had to wipe it clean, it's sticking to his skull. "I didn't want to but she forced me."

Kakashi's voice was kind—or was it only kind because it had stolen his attention, even for a fraction?—as he took hold of Sasuke's hand and slowly put it down. "Tell me how."

He swallowed. Cool snow glided down his throat. He sought for a calm spot in his mind, a paradise of white unmarred by colors, by red—he needed to put himself together, ignore the speckles of gold in the shadows. Breaking apart could come later.

But he could taste her, still. Metallic. Or was the scent so sharp he imagined he did?

"She's Kyuubi," he replied in a low whisper. His throat was sore from retching, from screaming. He swallowed once more. Snow. Blood. "She told me how she—how she k-killed Nii-san." He heard a deep intake of breath. The last breath before the jump. "Then she told me to shoot her.

"She... She made me."

_Pull yourself together. Snow on the ground. Blood in the veins. They're where they're meant to be, not together, never together. Blood on snow is obscene._ _Like a funeral decked in red, or a birthday feted in white. Never meant to cross._

_Pull yourself together._

"She's Kyuubi," he repeated dully. Dull was good. No emotions behind. Facts delivered weren't meant to be soaked in feelings. Even a hint was traitorous. "She's Kyuubi and she's working with Madara all along." His lifeless eyes stared into a mismatched pair. Simple. Everything must be made simple. No shades of gray. No lines of red. Just black and white. Colors obliterate.

"She's a murderer."

Sasuke lay back on the bed in the wake of his words. It hurt to care. He didn't want to hurt anymore.

Black couldn't hurt him. White wouldn't dare.

"Ever heard of the Jinchuuriki?" Kakashi asked, breaking the cold silence. He was staring at the ceiling. White. Not a pure white, but white still. White wouldn't dare.

_"A formal introduction is needed."_

Cracks on the ceiling. Typical.

_"Kyuubi, this is Uchiha Sasuke, son of my late younger brother Fugaku."_

Sasuke began counting. The lines of black on white. Black couldn't hurt him.

_"Sasuke-kun, this is Kyuubi no Youko of the Jinchuuriki."_

"It's rare for people to hear of the Jinchuuriki," Kakashi went on. _Don't listen, don't listen._ "Those who have thought it's a myth. How is it possible, after all, for nine individuals to have a run of the five great underworld empires of Japan?" Kakashi chuckled. There wasn't humor in it. _How did you know? You're listening, aren't you? _"It was inconceivable. No one could be that powerful. No one is supposed to be."

_Nine cracks. Huh._

"Kyuubi no Youko is a Jinchuuriki."

_"I believe you know her as Uzumaki Naruto?"_

He paused at his recount.

_Don't think, damned idiot._

"Konoha is the most powerful of what is called the Five Great Secrets and Kyuubi controls its underworld." _Stupid name. Secrets? What are they, girlie clubs?_ "It goes without saying that everything I say in this room remains here," Kakashi warned needlessly, almost as an afterthought. He shouldn't have, Sasuke thought. He wasn't listening anyway.

_Tch. Conspiracies. Not worth listening to. Count the cracks. One. Two. Three_—

"The Five Great Secrets control the country from the shadows, have been doing so since the era of the shogun. The one who controls any of the Great Secrets has a great measure of power over the country." Kakashi adjusted his position, leaning lazily on the uncomfortable chair with legs stretched before him. _How did you know, were you looking? Count._ "Since the Meiji Restoration, powerful people have been fighting over the control of the Five Great Secrets, done through secret wars in the quiet villages of Konoha, Suna, Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri, the actual reason for the name itself. No one would imagine an insignificant village to be a seat of power, na?"

_Fairy tales. Why did you stop counting? Four. Five. Six_—

"The ruler of a Great Secret controls a portion of Japan from any of these villages. Konoha controls Tokyo and the Prime Minister himself is under its ruler's direct command. Kyoto is also under Konoha, which Orochimaru seized once before it was recaptured. He called himself the Otokage. Not many were happy about it."

_Otokage_._ Damn, why repeat the word? And you're not counting!_

"Through the years, the Great Secrets have been split into two, their powers separated between the Kage and the Underworld. Some years the Kage won, other years the Underworld ruled. After the Second World War, both factions have come to tolerate each other with the silent understanding that the Kage rules by day and the Underworld rules by night. Law enforcement falls strictly on the Kage, though, and it became a game on which group catches which more member to convert to their side. By the end of the 20th century, the Underworld had relinquished control of Japan, opting to focus on dealing with other countries instead. Total control fell on the Kage, and it was then that the five Kage formed the ANBU as a secret network of police officers."

Kakashi leveled him an intense stare. Oops. He was caught not listening. Wait, he was caught listening. _Damn. _"You probably noticed there are no police officers in Konoha. In a Great Secret, the existence of a Kage is enough protection during the day. There is zero crime in the villages and anyone who dared to break a law is swiftly punished. The word of the Kage is law." The ANBU gave an odd smile. "None of the villagers have seen the Kage, though. Or even the Underworld ruler, for that matter. No one knows their identity except for a select few. Someone just spreads the news of a new Kage, or a new law, and it's enough. But it's different at night. At night, the Underworld rules. It's the Kage's only concession. The ANBU, however, keeps watch and interferes when directed by any of the Kage or the ANBU Commander."

_"Bad things tend to happen at night, y'know."_

"Years ago, something happened."

_You're not supposed to be remembering._

"A new Hokage was appointed and he immediately got on the wrong side of the Konoha underworld ruler. They couldn't co-exist and the Five Great Secrets was in danger of another secret war. The Yondaime Hokage was too upright and Kyuubi, the ruler famed for her weapon of choice, the cat o'nine tails, was too stubborn and proud. They fought constantly."

Kakashi's eyes suddenly curved into crescents. It was a change so abrupt that Sasuke found himself staring dumbly. "They had a child. Turns out that in the course of fighting, Namikaze Minato, the Hokage, and Uzumaki Kushina, Kyuubi, had fallen in love. Only the ANBU Commander and the other Kage knew of this."

_You fight those you love. Shut up. Not true._

"The two factions weren't supposed to be intimately involved with each other. It's tantamount to treachery and if any of the factions get wind of it, they will be punished with death. Whichever side captures them first."

_"So when the time's right, come after me, 'kay? Not to say you'd have an easy time of it. Just work hard then catch me."_

"I only knew because the Yondaime is my mentor."

_You're **not** supposed to be **remembering.**_

His eyes turned somber once again. "Kushina-san kept her child a secret. It's dangerous for her, anyone could take advantage of her pregnancy. She relied on her best friend during this time, and when her daughter Naruto was born, Kushina-san continued running the underworld the same way she had, except the ANBU knew more of their activities than before. The villagers thought the Yondaime was very efficient. No one suspected a thing."

Sasuke had unconsciously straightened up. He could feel it. His heart, beating again, stronger and louder in his chest.

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

_Naruto._

"Then Orochimaru and the Akatsuki happened. And then, the formation of the Jinchuuriki. The Jinchuuriki became the rulers of the underworld of the Five Great Secrets, Naruto being one of them. Rumors of how she made entire villages disappear overnight along with her sadistic tendencies proliferated. She only had one challenger, a death row escapee moonlighting as a hired assassin." A grim smile. "He disappeared, never seen since. She remains unchallenged to this day. With the support of the rest of the Jinchuuriki, taking her down is waging a war against the underworld of the Five Great Secrets."

_Don't think, just count. Back to one. One Naruto. Two Na—No, cracks. One crack. Two cracks—_

"Akatsuki is an organization of mercenaries lead by Uchiha Madara, your uncle, all wanted in different countries." Kakashi paused and continued, his words deliberate. "He approached the Jinchuuriki three years ago and they've been working together since."

He didn't really give a damn.

"Madara, an Uchiha, knew of the existence of the Kage and the Five Great Secrets. The Uchiha clan had always been ambitious but Madara took it to an entirely different level. He wanted to bring down the Great Secrets and unify all of Japan under his own control, and that is just the beginning. He needed the help of the Jinchuuriki of the Underworld, historical rivals of the Kage, to achieve his goal."

_I don't care_.

"What do you know about your brother's mission?" Kakashi suddenly asked.

_"I killed a lot of people to get in, Otouto. All of them traitors. All of them family. I'm known as a kin-slayer."_

Sasuke stared at the ANBU, not even having the will to glare. He felt empty. A drained glass. No quench for thirst in sight. "He's a spy," he replied. Cotton had invaded his mouth. He wanted water. Blue water, preferably. Like distant eyes. "Spying on Danzou, on Akatsuki, under the orders of your group." The cotton was so annoying. It wasn't even wet. "You killed him too," he added.

"He was compromised," Kakashi said, sounding almost sympathetic. Why? Had he been compromised before? "An Akatsuki was sent to track his movements. Madara himself began analyzing your brother's past mission reports and records, then he convened with the Jinchuuriki and the rest of Akatsuki without your brother's knowledge." Kakashi sighed, weary. Why? Was he thirsty too? "Another Akatsuki provided damning evidence that Itachi was a double agent for Danzou. Madara realized that Itachi knew who he really was and he gave an order to liquidate to Naruto, Itachi's Jinchuuriki partner."

He flinched at the name. Which name didn't matter. They both hurt.

He wanted to drink.

_You can count the drops of water you want to drink._

"Because Itachi is dead_—_" Sasuke flinched again, Kakashi studiously ignoring it, "_—_you're free for the taking."

What did that mean?

_You're not supposed to be listening!_

"Madara is out for your blood," Kakashi said. "Your father took down Oto, his friend Orochimaru's stronghold. He himself had claims on Oto but he had pulled out just in time to elude arrest. Even before that, your father had been waging a silent war against your uncle over the corruption that had taken over the Uchiha clan because of him. Madara was more than happy when a man paid him to kill your family." Kakashi stared at the impassive young man. "It was Danzou.

"Danzou is also after you," he continued, his stance suddenly tired. He figured it was tiring, spinning yarns at a swift rate. Sasuke ignored the soft voice that said everything was true. "He wants all Uchiha exterminated and he had your brother do it for him. He couldn't touch you, though. Madara couldn't either. If something happens to you, Itachi would know that Danzou had failed in keeping his side of the bargain, which was to give you protection. Madara, meanwhile, didn't want Itachi to suspect the possibility that he was alive. Itachi knew about the rift between your father and him, and if Itachi realized that Madara is alive, he would put two and two together and come after him.

"With your brother gone, it's only a matter of time before one of them catches you." Kakashi turned away. He would have turned away too. "And one of them did."

Things were a bit clearer, at least, but he wasn't thankful. Not the least bit. He wasn't supposed to be listening but he had been deluding himself the entire time.

"If you knew all about this," Sasuke said slowly, "then why the hell did you let everything reach this point?"

"We couldn't compromise the operation," Kakashi replied. From where he sat, the ANBU didn't look too proud with himself. "Three years of work will go down the drain, not to mention that a lot more people will be compromised."

"But my brother was _already_ compromised," he hissed, an angry red flaring within his eyes. "Three years and all you managed to do," his teeth gritted, "is _kill _my brother?"

Kakashi closed his eyes, sighing. He braced himself. There was something in the heavy weight in those mismatched eyes.

"Sasuke. It's his choice."

He sprang up, clutching the collar of the ANBU's shirt as he hovered over the man with a dangerous expression, all the blood pulled out of his face in fury. "Don't _fuck_ with me, _Hatake_. Nii-san is _not _an idiot to throw away his _life_ just like that."

Kakashi looked back at wild eyes glowing crimson in rage. He put a hand in his pocket and took out a small object, raising it before Sasuke's eyes. "This," he started, "is a microchip. Forensics found this inside your brother's stomach."

His eyes couldn't even show his shock. His grip loosened, though.

_I should've just counted. It's not too late._

"He knew we would find his body," Kakashi said, almost gentle. Sasuke didn't want gentle. Not from him. Only from—Only from_—_

"He planned to die so he could give this directly to us."

His head hung down.

"It was encrypted and incomplete. It requires another microchip to reveal all its content." Kakashi raised his hands and pulled down the white hand on his turtleneck collar. "The other half was found just three days ago. As we speak, all records of the Akatsuki—blueprints, plans, operations, clients, victims, profiles, connections—are being decrypted. Upon signal, the ANBU will attack."

"He died," Sasuke murmured, "to give a _microchip_?"

Kakashi shook his head. "He died to bring down Danzou and the Akatsuki," he said. "He died to protect his precious people."

"But he didn't just_ die_," Sasuke suddenly growled. He could hear it again, the voices. It sounded like hers. His hands fisted until they were a bloodless white. "He was _tortured!_ _She tortured him!_" He was now screaming but he didn't care. He wanted to explode. It sounded so wonderful. "He died _begging!_ Begging the girl he _loved _and _thought_ loved him _back!_ Do you have any idea how_—_how_—_" he covered his eyes with his hand—it hurt to hear, hurt to see, "_—_how painful, that is?" he ended in a raw whisper.

"Kyuubi?" Kakashi asked. The clear disbelief in his voice earned him a vicious red glare. The ANBU shook his head, expression perplexing as he spoke slowly. "Forensics found massive traces of procaine and minute traces of nitrous oxide in his blood. Anaesthetics," he explained. "He was clearly tortured for a couple of hours but he was too numb to feel anything. Cyanide found in his body ended his life."

The images they brought to mind so sickened him that Sasuke threw up again. He didn't make it to the side this time, though, and he grimaced at the rancid wetness seeping on the blanket—he had just thrown up water, his stomach empty of food, and it was disgustingly pathetic when he was so thirsty. A glass of water thankfully appeared before him and Sasuke grabbed it, a mendicant touching his first coin. After drinking, he pushed the blanket away from him. His mind analyzed the words he just heard.

_"I tortured him until he was **begging**."_

If Itachi couldn't feel pain, he wouldn't be begging.

_"Begging for me to **end** his pathetic life."_

... But who would inject him with procaine, made him breathe in the nitrous oxide? Was it _her?_

_"And his eyes! How they clouded with pleasure, pain—and hate too!—because **he loves me so fucking much** and he could only **beg for me to stop**—"_

The bigger question was, _why_ would she say the words she said?

_"How do you expect to **protect** people when you can't even **shoot** your brother's **murderer**?_

Why would she _lie_?

_"I'll give you a headstart with one shot just as I did with him."_

Why would she say those lies, knowing he would hate he_—_

_"Do you plan to kill Kyuubi?"_

His eyes widened.

_"He made me promise not to."_

Sasuke sprang up and his vision abruptly reeled. Kakashi stood up in surprise, holding him in place by his shoulders until he stopped swaying. All that throwing up had weakened his body and Sasuke cursed his fucking stomach for wasting all those food and water.

He stood still, refusing to lean on the older man, and waited for his world to stop spinning. He focused on evening his breathing, his heartbeat, of thinking of what he would do to that lying little_shit_ when he saw her again.

_"Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke... you can accuse me of all things, but **lying**? I never **lied** to you, littlest Uchiha."_

She was right.

_"Yes. I do love him."_

She never really did lie.

_"I killed **Itachi**, Sasuke. And I enjoyed every minute of it."_

Until tonight.

"Bring me to her," Sasuke demanded. He stood straight, his shoulders stiff, daring Hatake Kakashi to disobey him. He growled when the ANBU gave his curvy-eyed smile before heading to the door. Sasuke followed impatiently behind him.

Those nightmares, those dreams_—_

_"I don't dream normal dreams, is what I mean... sure, I dream, sometimes, but mostly I see memories."_

The way she felt in his arms, inside her, beside her_—_

_"And I hate myself for doing this to you... for ruining you like this."_

Her clear blue eyes, looking back to his, seeing him for the first time as they reflected his wonder_—_

_"You're the snow, teme... pure and flawless, wonderful in the light and beautiful in the dark."_

His name on her lips_—_

_"And me?"_

Their kiss_—_

_"I'm a mud. I'm tracking footprints in your snow and I..."_

Their last night together_—_

_"I couldn't stop myself, you fucking bastard."_

They weren't lies.

As they drew nearer to a black door at the end of the hallway, Sasuke could feel hope—burning, wrenching hope—throbbing in his heart. He would talk to her, demand the truth from her—then he would crush her to his chest for daring to make him hate her. He would love her until she finally allowed herself to cry, until all her grief, her pain, were washed away by her tears. And then he would love her until she realized that what he felt for her was real and would never change no matter what she did, what she said.

He would love the fucking moron until she could love him back.

Complete idiot.

His unseeing eyes watched Kakashi swipe a card on a square box on the wall beside the door. The door opened with an audible click and the ANBU pushed it open.

"Shit."

His pale brows furrowed and Sasuke pushed Kakashi out of the way, his heart pounding painfully in his chest.

Blood drained out of his face.

The room was empty.

_Dobe—!_

Save for the prints of red blood screaming on the walls.

* * *

_Everyone hungers but not everyone hungers for the same. Some hungers for revenge, others want for power, still others need for peace, a few thirsts for life. Whatever it is, however far it is, traverse the distance laid out before your eyes—until you are content, until you are happy, until you reach the blue in the skies._


	22. Looking Underneath the Shadow

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Truth and lies are the same in one respect—they are not what they seem, concealed under layers of half-truths or almost-lies, though the former is harder to expose than the latter. It is not everyday that truth comes to light, because truth, with its assumed brutal hands and imagined cruel smile, can shake the foundations that make up a world's accepted truth—and truth, in its purest, is not dictated by anyone; harder to see, harder to accept, harder to understand by everyone._

* * *

It was laughable, really.

Here he was, hiding inside an abandoned warehouse that could pass for a smelly old cave—it reeked of stale water and it had certain damp air, and Sasuke wondered vaguely what this warehouse had been used for in the past. Perhaps, though, it was from the pre-dawn winter chill brought in by the silent wind, drifting past the huge cracks in the broken windows on the third floor of the warehouse. Perhaps it was from silent desperation, from the shafts of moonlight—gray, fading—trying in vain to light up the darkness inside the warehouse, a darkness that no amount of artificial light could entirely remove. Perhaps it was from these men and women, damning the light even as they stood under its fierce glare.

They were a bizarre group, these people, far from the typical underworld figure. They were clad in the strangest clothes Sasuke had ever seen, but the most perplexing was, despite the motley of colors that each person presented—through their clothes, their hair, their eyes, even their _nails_—they all blended into the shadows, as if no amount of light could infiltrate the darkness that had covered every inch of their being, the darkness they have become. Even as they stood in a circle, washed in the obscenity of fluorescent lamps, flickering, ominous. Even as their clothes rippled with every daring of the wind. Even as their hair caught the glint of the gray light from the moon.

They defied light with their existence. With every flicker of the lamp, the shadows in the warehouse delighted in their presence.

He eyed a scurrying rodent, gray and hairy and menacing, its aura that of one who owned the warehouse as it skittered past him. Sasuke briefly wondered what it was about abandoned warehouses that attracted the scums of the earth. Weren't villains supposed to enjoy state-of-the-art lairs to go about with their businesses? Weren't they supposed to lust after the luxuries of life, their prime reason for organizing crimes in the first place? Weren't they supposed to believe that they deserve the best of what life could offer, whether it was awarded to them or not?

And really,_ this_ was the hideout of the great organization of mercenaries wanted in different countries? Couldn't they afford a penthouse, or even just a suite, where they could commence plotting evil against the rest of humanity? From what media kept trumpeting, evil pays and it pays _a lot_. Possessing a more respectable lair should have been one of the top priorities of evil organizations. Unless mercenaries were cheapskates?

_Didn't anyone from their group ever wonder about that?_

He couldn't come out exactly and ask, of course. Not when he was hiding. He was hiding behind wooden crates and he felt four again, running around on his short chubby legs to find the best hiding place against his big brother, the coolest seeker the whole world over. Sasuke could feel someone hovering behind him and the childish echo of _Nii-san found me again!_ vanished when a pair of mismatched eyes met his, something indefinable in its depths.

_Yosh, a new seeker! I've got to find a new hiding place, quick!_

Sasuke stifled an inappropriate giggle bubbling up his throat, giving himself a harsh shake. This wasn't the time for this. He was in a serious situation, inside an abandoned warehouse hiding to save his life, hers. She was there, in the center of sixteen cold-blooded individuals, each with expressions so blank, so empty, he could hardly believe they were people. _Hardened criminals_, was his fleeting thought, hurting without compunction, spilling blood without hesitation. A blink and they're gone. A breath and you are.

Looked stupid, though, those eight people, wearing an attire only a teenager wallowing in angst would dream into reality. They looked like porcelain dolls, carved and smooth—and Sasuke thought that was the worst metaphor he had ever made.

Strangely apt, however. Porcelain dolls. Goth dolls. They stood around her in cloaks of black with red clouds lined with white. Dresses for porcelain goth dolls, blades up their sleeves, glassy eyes behind shadows. See them and they judge you. Push them and they hurt you. Shattered but shattering, breaking in their brokenness. Beautiful white enticing red to flow into rivers of black.

Their cloaks suited them.

Sasuke wanted to laugh. They looked absurd.

"Akatsuki."

Sasuke hardly paid attention as Kakashi listed their names in a low voice. _Sasori. Deidara. Hidan. Kakuzu. Zetsu. Kisame. Pain_. And _Madara_, the bastard with the same blood as his. It was enough reason, he morbidly mused, for him to try to draw out every last drop of his blood just so _that man_ and he had nothing else in common.

_Akatsuki_.

What were they? Why that name? Were they mercenaries who dabble in poetry? Was the name supposed to be symbolic? The red moon, for when the night cried and no one was about to watch? Dawn, for when the day began and no one was alive to see?

Whichever didn't matter. Red moon, dawn, both looked like the skies torn into bloody pieces.

_"I offered myself as a spy, and six months of underworld work after six months of rigorous training in **Ne** earned me enough renown to be invited as the ninth member of Akatsuki."_

It chilled him, seeing his brother with the same face, wearing the same cloak. The ninth member. Itachi.

It wasn't funny anymore.

He swallowed, tasting dust. The warehouse was ancient. Was it the dust of the ground he tasted or the ashes of those long dead?

Sasuke realized he didn't want to know.

Finally, he allowed his dark eyes to look at her once more. And he felt it, the punch in his gut. Her sight was so powerful it brought goosebumps on his skin.

It terrified him.

Naruto was bleeding, her jacket open to reveal torn black mesh shirt and the bandages around her breasts. The bandages were soaked with blood from a bullet wound in her chest, strips of black wrapped around her as extra bandages. Thin streams of blood caked her bare midriff and she stood with her head held high, surrounded by the deadliest of criminals the underworld had ever seen, not a hint of emotion on the lifelessness called her face.

She's bleeding too much. She shouldn't be standing at all.

"Seems she removed the bullet with her own hand," Kakashi muttered grimly beside him. Sasuke blanched and he breathed deeply, as quietly as he could, forcing his world to come back into focus. It shouldn't be this difficult, staying together—he had watched shows, movies featuring blood and gore, read horror and other relevant literary genre with copious amounts of bleeding and screaming to haunt him before he managed to sleep. But it was different, wrenchingly so, to be faced with its reality—to know that it was someone he knew, someone he _cared_ for, who was bleeding in front of him while facing impending death, to know that every drop of blood oozing out of her veins was a drop of life irrevocably gone.

It wasn't ketchup. Wasn't red dye. Wasn't thick strawberry syrup, a mockery of death with its sweetness. Excess sugar to cover the bitterness. Tempt the senses.

It was different and bitter and cruel in its truth.

He took another deep breath. Sasuke could feel the viscous warmth on his cheek anew. He raised his hand. Nothing.

But she was bleeding, still. Because he had shot her. Because she had made him. Because she had decided it upon herself to remove the bullet in her chest.

Because she wanted to die.

_"Run."_

He remembered her eyes. White lines, cracks on blue mirrors. She was broken. The blood on her scar was another line, another crack. Naruto couldn't stop breaking.

The memory of the blood prints on the wall was making him nauseous.

The ANBU was watching him in alarm and, satisfied that Sasuke wasn't going to throw up, break down, continued. "You're really a pain, aren't you."

He blinked and, with growing ease—learned just an hour ago, and was it really just an hour ago?—focused a withering glare before settling his eyes back to the sight in front of him. He forced his eyes to lessen its focus, blurring the edges of everyone and everything he saw. It made things easier.

"What are we going to do?" he asked. Sasuke already knew what he wanted to do. Jump up and save her then punch her until she told the truth so he could kiss her senseless.

He couldn't believe he could still think of _that_.

"Nothing," Kakashi replied. "Backup's not yet here. Besides," his eyes were serious, "an ANBU is no match for all the Akatsuki and Jinchuuriki combined. We're strong but not _that_ strong."

He felt frustration beginning to boil under his skin.

"But_—_"

"Look, kid," Kakashi cut off. Sasuke glowered at the epithet. "You threw a tantrum when I threatened to lock you in the room so you won't follow _after_ you ordered me to let you go _after_ I told you this is ANBU business. You _promised_ you won't be a pest. I've yet to see you uphold your end."

His glare darkened. He did _not_ throw a tantrum. And he wasn't a _pest_.

"Fu_—_"

"They're talking."

"_—_exactly pleases me," the man in the one-eyed orange mask, Madara, intoned. Just the voice of his uncle was enough to set Sasuke's blood boiling. It was this bastard who began everything. The root of all his brother's suffering. His. Theirs.

He could feel himself shaking with rage. Red was creeping on the edges of his sight once again. They looked suspiciously like Madara's blood.

A heavy hand on his arm was grabbing him. Sasuke didn't realize he was beginning to stand up until he was forced down. Forcefully and silently.

Kakashi's gaze was disapproving. "You're too impulsive."

Sasuke glared again, not disputing the statement. That was one of the reasons he often controlled his emotions. Emotions were his weakness, even back then when he only felt a limited number of them. The times he was overwhelmed by what he felt, when he couldn't ignore it anymore, he acted based on impulse alone, throwing logic and reason and caution to the wind. It had been his brother's lone source of headache as far as an adolescent Sasuke was concerned.

With a last glare, he turned his eyes back to her. He could dwell on his poor handling of his emotions later on.

Standing directly across Madara was her, shrugging carelessly as if she wasn't wounded, bleeding. Another drop of blood trailed down her torso, crimson against honey. His dark eyes followed its path until it vanished beneath the waistband of her pants, forever lost.

Sasuke forced his eyes back to her face. He was a sick bastard.

All faint thoughts of how she remained gorgeous despite the situation abruptly vanished in the wake of her cold smile.

And suddenly, everything that Hatake Kakashi had said about her, those words that he had consciously chosen to make light of, pretended not to hear_—_

"He's an Uchiha, he's going to fight back," she said, her tone almost breezy, matching her smile. "He got a hit in and ran before I could catch him. I can get him another time, I know where he lives."

Suddenly, they were _real_.

Her smile turned into a chillingly predatory grin. "Besides, the bastard's a masochist. Couldn't stop coming back for more."

Kyuubi. This was _Kyuubi no Youko_, the ruler of the Konoha _underworld_. This was someone who _lived_ in the shadows, who _breathed_ in the dark, who came _alive_ at night. This was the person rumored to make entire villages disappear overnight, who made an audacious challenger vanish into thin air. This was someone capable of _hurting_, even _killing_. This was _Kyuubi_.

_"Only Kyuubi can match me."_

This was _his brother's **murderer**._

He stumbled forward, catching himself on a rusty rail at the last moment. Shit, _shit!_ What the fuck was he doing here? Why was he hiding inside an abandoned warehouse with a person he didn't even know, watching and worrying and wanting to save this... _this_? _This_ wasn't his _Naruto_. This was _Kyuubi_, a cold-blooded _murderer!_ This was someone who took advantage of Itac—

_"Sasuke. It's his choice_."

He shook his head. No. It wasn't enough. She still _killed_ hi—

_"He made me promise not to."_

No. It's not enough, not enough, _not enough_—It's not enough but help him, he still loved her.

_Damn_—

He still loved her.

_Damn._

This was Kyuubi and he couldn't see his Naruto but Sasuke still loved her, still believed she was in there beneath the cold veneer of her smile. He had seen it, a glimpse of her. In that thin line of white in the mirror of her eyes, he saw her.

She's still there.

Sasuke almost jerked in shock when a hand pulled him back. He threw an accusing stare at the ANBU, who was giving him a narrow-eyed gaze. He was ready to glower when a slight tilt on the man's head showed him what he had failed to see—the rusty rail beginning to crumble under his harsh grip.

"Control yourself."

He took a deep breath, deciding to ignore the masked ANBU. Sasuke couldn't afford to antagonize him more than he had, both for their safety and hers. Besides, Kakashi _did_ bring him here even if he didn't have to, though Sasuke would have found a way to follow anyway. Being allowed to follow the ANBU made it easier for him to bypass the security in the hideout, though, which was very disappointing, in his opinion. They hadn't even met _anyone_, and there was none of those high-tech security systems that would alert anyone of intruders in the perimeter. It was very uneventful, anticlimactic. They had managed to sneak in, past the labyrinthine ground floor, and reach the center of the warehouse without getting lost and being detected by any of these supposed elite criminals.

Sasuke wondered who were the greater morons—the ANBU, or the members of the Akatsuki and Jinchuuriki. Something told him, though, that something was—

"Look underneath the underneath, Sasuke."

_Off_.

He didn't realize they were silent until that man's voice, dark and amused, impinged the cold silence.

"Interesting," Madara commented. Sasuke couldn't see the bastard's expression on account of that ridiculous orange mask. The man on his despicable uncle's left, wearing the same goth-doll dress Madara was wearing, face oddly painted in equal halves of complete black and spotless white, was chuckling as if there was a joke buried somewhere within his soul that he was itching to share to the rest of his expressionless comrades. The strange man's chuckles turned into low laughter and a thin line of red appeared on his cheek. It didn't seem to bother him that the white side of his face was beginning to bleed.

Judging from another set of low laughter, it seemed Madara had heard the silent joke. "Now the truth, Kyuubi-_chan_?" he asked. The lone hole in the orange mask seemed to glitter from where Sasuke stood. He unconsciously braced himself, breath bated. All that glitters hurt the eye.

Her expression remained the same, blue eyes steady and blank. There was no trace of emotion against the subtle accusation. "I just said it."

The two-colored man was now laughing outright. His grin showed his sharp teeth, stark white. It distorted the careful balance of the colors on his face. Blood dripped down his chin, distorting it further. They clashed against his hair, dyed green, highlighting the amber glow of his empty eyes.

Cat's eyes. They bulged from the squashed body of a white kitten with black stripes, steeped in its own blood and the chipped paint of a green car. Gaping mouth, flat pink tongue, sharp teeth. A dead creature's grin.

"Zetsu seems to think differently," Madara said smoothly. Like fine wine, sliding down the throat to choke. Sasuke felt like coughing, so constricted was his throat. Something was terribly off and he didn't understand.

Naruto threw the man called Zetsu a lazy look, dismissing the other with a casual glance before turning to Madara once again. "I'm not exactly thrilled with voyeurs," she replied with a sneer. Sasuke felt a sudden wash of shame, his ears heating up at the last word. "I hate people watching me work. I'm not anyone's entertainment."

_... Watching me work?_

"Think of it this way, Tobi_-kun_," she continued, her eyes gleaming. Ice. "He could've lost an eye like that idiot over there. You could've lost another member. You didn't. I could've aimed at his _throat_."

"Like you could have aimed at your _heart_, Kyuu_bi_?"

A blond snickered, a lone visible eye gleaming with amused anticipation. The others in the same Akatsuki cloak were expressing their amusement in more subtle ways, their dead eyes mocking their fellow dead. The ones who stood beside them—their Jinchuuriki partners—were silent, their faces retaining its mask of nothingness. Did they ever feel anything at all?

And his uncle's last words echoed in his mind, damning her actions. It confused him more.

Madara was right. If she _really_ wanted to die, why didn't she aim the gun in his hand to her heart?

_"I'm not anyone's entertainment."_

He shook at a chill climbing up his spine, so certain, so cold. It knocked the breath off his lungs.

She _knew_. She knew that someone was _watching _them. This _Zetsu_ was sent by his uncle to make sure that she finished her job when _she wasn't planning to all along._ And she... she _knew_, that if he killed her—

His breath hitched.

_"Run."_

She knew this_ Zetsu_ would _kill __him._

_I don't_—_don't know what to think anymore_. _Nothing's making any sense. Are you an enemy or a friend? Did you even really kill Nii-san, tortured him like you said? Because if you did, why can't you kill me?_

Knew that if she went through her plan to kill herself through him—

_But then again, why would you make me kill you? Guilt? Pain? Because_—_because you just don't want to live anymore? Because you regret what you did? Because you really did kill him and you really did love him and you can't live without him?_

Sasuke would _die._

_What's happening? What are you up to, Naruto?_

"Itachi was a genius," Madara declared, his stance relaxed, his voice warm. As if he was sitting beside a drowsy child, ready to tell a good night story. "He was precision incarnate, excellence in human form. He never minced his words and he never hesitated, and I'm proud to be related to such an exemplary man." Sasuke could hear the sinister smile growing underneath the mask, see the sickening stretch of a mouth to reveal a grin. A snarl. "Quite unfortunate he turned out to be a traitor. He was a true Uchiha."

Madara began pacing—it reminded Sasuke of a panther stalking its prey. "Genius aside, I feel he isn't working alone. He turned out to be a spy, _Danzou's spy_, as he claimed, but something told me there is something more. Danzou and I are, after all, _acquaintances_," he emphasized the last word with the secret pride of a child who had bested his alleged friend. Sasuke wanted to laugh. He knew something that bastard didn't.

_Idiot._

"Moreover," Madara went on, stopping in front of Naruto,"Itachi didn't have the necessary grasp of the underworld to be intimately familiar with its workings—he would have to work with someone with that understanding. I immediately thought of ANBU but it couldn't be them. They may know but they're spineless bastards, too afraid to deal with the underworld face to face. Hypocrites, upholding the law while giving the lawless free rein. It couldn't be them. It couldn't be outside elements either, because the five Greats, six _once_, are a tight bunch and they don't trust easily.

"So—it would have to be someone from the underworld itself."

Sasuke's eyes slowly widened in shock. Was the bastard implying—

He turned to Kakashi, stunned. There was no surprise in the man's mismatched eyes. Only the tightness on his shoulders indicated that Kakashi understood what Madara meant. That he _knew_, the freak.

He returned to the tableau before him, his thoughts racing. It was—It was—

_"We met at work."_

_"He and I are partners at work, teme."_

_"As such, I leave you in the hands of my partner."_

_"If something happens to me, please watch over him. He is sometimes so involved in his dreams he forgets to live."_

_"And I promised I will."_

It was _staggering._

_What the hell_—

He didn't know what to think anymore.

_What the fucking hell_—

The leader of the Akatsuki stopped in front of the silent blonde, cloak sweeping in a fluid dance. The orange mask was suddenly menacing. Circles of hell. Burning.

_Naruto_—_is a **spy**?_

"Zetsu reported something interesting," Madara said with a dangerous edge on his toneless voice. He turned around, addressing the fifteen individuals standing around them in a circle. Sasuke instinctively ducked when the crimson eye passed through their hiding place behind the rotten wooden crates and its railing rusted with years. "It appears Kyuubi no Youko had let her mark escape on purpose."

_Fuck!_

There was a deadly rush of air and the two in the center moved. As abruptly as they began, they stopped.

Sasuke couldn't blink. He couldn't afford to miss anything. He might kill her if he closed his eyes.

All fifteen criminals had trained their guns on the blonde in the center. Madara's gun was aimed at Naruto's forehead. Naruto's gun was digging at Madara's heart.

_Dobe!_

And her blank blue eyes looked directly into his.

* * *

_Not everything you see or hear is true, just as not everything you know is right. Look underneath the underneath past the shadow of lies—behind every shadow is a source of light._


	23. Falling Without a Sound

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_And it falls, without a sound—the light, the snow, the sun against the night. Like the leaf, red and gold, as it drifted to the ground. Like a man, cursed and tainted, as he succumbed to the calls of sin. Like a life, tired and spent, as it looked to eternal rest._

* * *

His heart was jumping out of his rib cage.

"So..."

Her empty gaze held his, trapping him from where he hid. In a world suddenly narrowed to the blue canvas of her eyes, Sasuke couldn't move. Couldn't think. Couldn't _breathe._

With eyes as mirrors of the soul, did he exist in its reflection at all?

"What's the story?"

Blue flickered to white, so subtle, so swift, transferring back to the masked leader like they had always been there. As if those seconds hadn't occurred, those seconds their eyes connected, as if he had dreamed it wide awake like he had dreamed of her touch before. He was only certain it was real because he was suddenly free—because suddenly he could move, could think, could breathe.

And it ached, the first rush of air. It was a ruthless gust of cold, freezing him inside. A brutal ghost haunting him with the hovering specter of her last.

No wonder Kakashi knew her, spoke of her with an odd familiarity he had taken for granted. No wonder they had managed to infiltrate this warehouse so easily, so ridiculously easily. No wonder she was here, right now, staring down sixteen barrels of guns trained between her eyes, all with the accuracy of a deadly marksman. No wonder she made him _run_.

Suicide mission. She had turned this—_this_ into a fucking _suicide mission._

He took a shaky breath, frustrated. The complete moron. After letting him know, she wanted to _die_?

"Kakashi!" he hissed, his face ghostly white, his eyes pure black maelstroms of tumultuous emotions. His body thrummed with anxiety, fear, with a build-up of energy waiting to be released in a sudden burst of action. He could feel his blood pumping painfully in his veins, and even his lungs, filling with air, releasing air, hurt with each motion. "Kakashi, dammit, _we have to do something!_"

The ANBU didn't answer.

"Care to tell, Kyuubi-_chan_?" Madara taunted. Sasuke could hear the rumble of the bastard's laughter. Thunder. The storm was getting nearer and he hated storms, hated thunder, hated this man who destroyed the people he loved, the person once his world. He couldn't let this bastard destroy his world again.

Sasuke leaned forward, eyes dark with a promise. This despicable bastard would never destroy anything of his again.

"How did you and my dear nephew form your alliance to bring us down? What did you do to _convince_ him?" There was such malice in his words that Sasuke could feel hot anger spilling in his soul, the air around him crackling with the intensity of his rage. His fists clenched, bloodless, white as his face, blood pulled taut and pooling in the crimson fury of his eyes.

They swallowed his face with the bastard's next words.

"Did you tell him who I am and promised my head on a platter? Or," Madara paused, chuckling, prolonging his amusement, "is it the _other_ way around? Itachi _convinced_ you?" He leaned forward with a loud stage whisper, an intrusive gossip, spiteful, carelessly disregarding the gun now deeper on his chest. "Did you have fun, _Kyuu-bi-chaaaaaan__?_"

Something was restraining him. A hand, hands. Iron, gripping his arms. That masked freak Kakashi was forcing him down and what the _fuck_ was the asshole stopping him for?

Sasuke turned behind him, scarlet vengeance in his glance. Kakashi's grip faltered before strengthening. It was blue, however, a shot of blue that stopped him with its icy warning.

"Control yourself," Kakashi repeated, this time more urgently, more angrily. Sasuke gritted his teeth, furious with him, furious with her. Did they expect him to sit and watch her dance around a rain of bullets? Did she _think_ it would make him happy _when he knew she planned to die?_

His fingers wouldn't stop twitching, longing to break something. He struggled to summon a measure of calm as his jaws clenched with the effort. He drew in a shuddering breath, trying to be calmer. But he needed—needed to do _something_. Waiting was _killing_ him.

A shaky hand climbed up, covering his eyes. Damn it. Why couldn't he help her? She had—had always been there for him. Helped him even when he didn't ask for it. Even when he acted like an ingrate and turned it against her. Even—Even when she turned him against her with the poison of her words, enraged him enough to hurt her and curse her body and soul. Even when she forced his hand to kill her, she was still helping him. Saving him.

_Why can't I save you?_

Everything was so twisted. He even felt a little gratitude to this Zetsu for forcing her to alter her plans. Had it just been him and her, Naruto would have been dead and he would still be damning her soul to the depths of hell. But if it wasn't for this same moron, she wouldn't be in this danger right now, her very existence threatened, caught in this circle of creatures endemic to hell.

_"It's as simple_—_as this."_

And he wouldn't have known the truth, or even just a measure of it, and he wouldn't have known how its weight had been tearing her apart.

_"And I enjoyed every minute of it."_

But which was true, which was false? In the webs of deception she had spun with her tongue, which thread of truth was breaking her beneath her careless air? Which subtile length of lie covered the cracks in her smile?

_Did you, at all?_

She was so dauntless, so foolish, facing the inevitable with such audacity. And yet she was a coward, choosing death over life when she could do so much more. Giving up when she showed him in her laughter, in her light, that he shouldn't give up because there is more to life than the darkness of its other side.

_You're a damned hypocrite, usuratonkachi_—

And yet against beliefs, against reason, against peace, against sanity, Sasuke still loved her beyond mortal understanding.

_Like me._

Her upper lip curled in a sneer, mocking. Teeth bared, challenging, glinting sharp against the light. A vivid flash of lightning in infinities of dark skies.

Sasuke stiffened. Thunder was to come next. How swiftly it came would show how near the storm was.

"You talk a lot, _o-ji-ji,_" she taunted, raising a finger to rub her nose like an incorrigible rascal. "A little less talk and a little more action, yeah?"

His breath caught in his throat.

"Of course," Madara agreed. With speed so fast it was nothing short of a sleight of hand, Madara aimed his gun on her shoulder and a shot immediately rang out. Naruto bit down her lower lip enough to draw blood, a hand clutching her wound as she stifled a cry of pain. Blood immediately gushed out, a waterfall of crimson. Sasuke watched orange darken with red.

Red moon. Dawn.

_Akatsuki._

Sasuke jerked up, enraged. Kakashi pulled the furious young man with all his might, a hand scrambling to catch a falling wooden crate with his other hand over the snarling mouth. The ANBU breathed a silent sigh of relief at the save before fixing an angry glare at the emotional Uchiha, tightening his left hand enough to make the other wince. Sasuke halted long enough to return Kakashi's glare with a dark glower of his own.

"What part of _control yourself_ can't you understand?" the older man whispered irritably. "Itachi had more control in his eyelash!"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed, his movements stopping completely. Kakashi removed his hand and backed an inch away, slight wariness at the change. Sasuke leaned forward, expression chilly as his voice—he still hadn't forgotten how ANBU played a role in his brother's life and perhaps, he never will.

"Don't speak of my brother ever again," he said, his eyes chips of sharp black ice. Kakashi answered the silent threat in his eyes with a careful nod of his own. Sasuke disliked him, immensely so, opting to dismiss the other with another glare before returning, his heart beating wildly, to where she stood.

_Naruto, dobe_ —

To where she was shot.

_Don't die, hang on_—

She was grinning. Or grimacing, it was quite difficult to tell. It was getting hard to see—the world was blurring and she looked softer for some reason. He could see her in a snow of white jasmines, a soft glow in her smile, in her eyes, the vision blurry but beautiful, the way she looked now as she bled before his eyes.

Heat prickled behind his eyes, damning him every second. She was hurting and it hurt with every second he watched—

And then it dawned on him, horribly, that she was _buying more time in exchange of her life._

Another shot rang out. She couldn't dodge, she was hurt. She was surrounded. She was dying.

He was on his knees watching her die.

Naruto tumbled to the ground with a silent cry, blood gushing out faster from her shoulder shot twice on the same area. The second bullet was tangled in her veins, steel wrapped in red. Tinsel strewn on the floor, each coil glinting like silvers and rubies.

It's Christmas in less than a month.

"You're quite the masochist, dear little fox," Madara commented. He crouched down, slowly, cupping her chin with the gentleness of a father's touch, forcing the hissing blonde to look into his eye. "I wonder how tortu—_ohhhh._"

_Torture._

Blue eyes dulled with pain slowly narrowed at the knowing voice. Sasuke stopped breathing.

_No._

And then, his heart stopped beating.

_Nononono**no**._

"Did it hurt you, Kyuubi?" Madara purred. Her face, already devoid of color, turned into ash. "_Torturing_ your partner? You really _were_ in love with him, little vixen?"

_"No one should have to. But if it's needed, I am."_

She wasn't lying.

"Fuck you," Naruto gasped out. Her eyes, glasses of blue, were beginning to crack. Hairlines of white, virgin snow, crossing the false certainty of a river solid with ice.

_"No one should have to torture and be tortured."_

She really _did_ kill his brother.

Madara leaned forward, a gleeful child, perverse in his joy at getting what he wished. "Do you dream about it?" he asked, his voice theatrically hushed. Anticipating a vile secret that would ruin people's lives.

_"Sometimes, you have to torture, even if you don't enjoy putting someone else in that kind of pain."_

She really _did_ torture him.

"Go... to..._ hell_..." she whispered. Too weak to raise her voice, too weak to stop her eyes from showing the brokenness she hid inside. Shattering into shards of blue. Stabbing where it hurt the most.

_"He's alive but already dead inside, and what's worse is, he keeps dying even when there's no soul left of him to die."_

She really _did _love Itachi.

"Does he haunt you, when you try to sleep?" Madara went on, standing, circling around her prone figure. A vulture, waiting for his prey to die. He lived in carnage. "Do you remember what you used to do on _that _bed, you dirty slut?"

_"He can't wish to be dead because he is dead, and dead people can't wish and he doesn't deserve it anyway, for making someone suffer."_

And they made her—made her—

She coughed, spitting blood, attempting a cocky air as she struggled to stand, piece the fragments of blue in the ocean of her eyes. How many times, how many times had she been forced to do it? Close her eyes against the pain, curve her lips into a smile? "Fucking d-die... already..." she spat again, dark red on dusty gray, stark life against death. She looked up, splintered blue on pale ash, eternally fearless against fear, "smelly... old... bastard..."

_"The worst is having to torture someone you care for just so everybody else won't have to suffer."_

Made her _torture_ and _kill_ the man—the man she _loved_.

Madara went on, reveling in her obstinacy. She would die standing up, her head held high, and he would enjoy forcing her on her knees until she breathed her last. "What does he tell you, Kyuubi?" he murmured. So softly, so brutally. The hand that caressed in one breath and stabbed in the next.

_"Three years of work will go down the drain, not to mention that a lot more people will be compromised."_

Madara... ANBU... They forced her to kill him against her will...

She was swaying but she was standing, her hand pressed on her shoulder to staunch the ceaseless flow of blood. A burdened figure, lopsided, shoulder higher than the other, weight unevenly dispersed yet still so stubborn, so proud, carrying a load she couldn't bear alone anymore. "Die..." she rasped out. Her eyes shone so much, like facets of divided diamonds. Brilliant against the sun. Hurting in its shine.

_"Sasuke. It's his choice."_

Even... Even his own _brother_...

Madara preferred the brilliance of power, prestige—her eyes were too bright for his taste though it teased his senses, the hint of tears in her eyes. "Does he regret _everything_?" he taunted.

_"And for the record, this is Uzumaki Naruto-**sama** and Uchiha Itachi-**chan** would be my pretty little **wife**, **hohoho!**"_

How did it feel? Forced by circumstances beyond her control, her power, forced by the words she had to regard as law? Forced by the man she gave her everything to—her heart, her body, her soul, her life—forced by the man she promised to spend forever with? How deep was the betrayal, the despair, the grief? How sharp was the guilt, the sorrow, the pain? How dark was the world through the blood on her hands, how dark was the world through the blood in her eyes?

"Stop..."

_"But it's our purpose and we accept it, so there'll be people like you who can choose."_

No wonder... No wonder she wanted to _die..._

A mocking whisper. "Does his precious little brother know everything you _did?_"

_"Thank you."_

"**_Shut up!_**" Sasuke roared. And he was moving, fury in motion, too fast for him to reconcile his actions with his thoughts, knowing only that he was going to _hurt the motherfucking bastard_ for everything he did until the last drop of his_ despicable blood_ came out of his mutilated _carcass _and_ burn_. His mind repeatedly screamed the words his body moved to follow—Uchiha Madara would die _die **die!**_

Eyes crimson with rage devoured the sixteen people staring at him with varying degrees of surprise on their faces. Time stood still, each wretched creature frozen in a second, before the next second came and everything moved with hair-raising speed.

It was surreal, how time sped up and slowed in snippets of milliseconds. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't been a part of it.

Madara turned around.

Naruto darted forward.

Fifteen guns moved in sync.

Eight guns swerved abruptly.

Sasuke lunged.

Naruto shouted.

Kakashi raised his gun and fired.

A succession of shots echoed just as men in navy blue and bullet-proof vests poured inside the building, spilling like water from every orifice of the warehouse. Everything was happening at the same time and Sasuke stopped, bewildered, panting hard and wondering _just what the hell happened_ as his shocked eyes tried to take in as much as he could.

Everything was a blur and it took moments for his world to come to focus.

Before him, Uchiha Madara was crumpled to the ground, rivers of blood flowing from a gunshot on his chest, his throat, between his eyes. The orange mask, now with two holes, lay beside the prone figure, a basin of thick red waters. Dark eyes studied the man with detached interest and confusion.

_What—What happened_—_?_

He heard footsteps approaching behind him. Sasuke risked a glance and saw Kakashi, his gun still smoking, slowly lowering his arms. There was a grim smile visible beneath his mask as he moved forward, past the unmoving youngest Uchiha, checking to see if Madara was still alive. His fingers sought for a pulse on the base of the pale throat. Sasuke tried to move.

_Is Madara_—_?_

"I shot him on the throat. Gaara between the eyes," Naruto muttered, wheezing with every word, cocking her head to a redheaded man with black circles around his eyes at the end of her statement. She ignored the officers in dark blue who stood around them, eyeing instead the seven people lying in a circle with bullet holes on their temples. The other eight stood motionless as the officers approached them warily.

_Are they backup? They look..._ his brows furrowed._ ... familiar._

When the redheaded man, Gaara, moved to approach her with his gun still in his hand, an officer froze. "Guns on the floor and hands in the air!" the man yelped. The remaining eight underworld figures turned to Naruto, their faces devoid of reaction yet managing to convey their question. She wheezed again and gave a weak nod. They put their guns down and raised their hands, faces identically blank.

_Are they Jinchuuriki? ... Like Kyuubi? Like_—

"Naruto..." Kakashi sighed. Finding no pulse, he stood up and approached the wounded girl. As if a veil was lifted from his eyes, everything suddenly cleared and Sasuke could _see_.

_Naruto?_

He could see her, breathing, and _he couldn't move at all._

_Move... Move, dammit!_

The ANBU slammed a heavy hand on the yellow crown of hair—Naruto whined at the treatment, wincing with every stab of pain from the smallest of her movements. "Some _kindness_, will ya? Blood replenishing pills don't last forever and I'm fucking dizzy," she grumbled, wheezing intermittently with every gesture of her hands. She was weaving stories once more with her words and her hands, and Sasuke wanted so much to stand before her and watch it end with her smile.

_Naruto..._

"You idiot," Kakashi growled. He hit her upside the head and ignored her protests, eyes showing clear displeasure. Sasuke disliked this ANBU, so so much—how could he not like a story that ended with her alive? "Don't ever pull a stunt like that again. You disobeyed a direct order, Uzumaki. You could have—"

_Naruto, dobe..._

"—compromised the operation?" Naruto cut in with a roll of her eyes. It was such a familiar action it brought a lump in his throat. It was so familiar it could only be real.

_You're alive..._

"—been killed," Kakashi corrected with steel in his eyes. He regarded her with an appraising look. "How did you know all the Akatsuki will be here?"

Sasuke struggled to move. He wanted to reach her, so much. He needed to touch her and assure himself that she was alive, alive, _alive_.

She shrugged. "I thought they'd come together, see, if Madara suspects treachery. Like... Like with Itachi," she ended in a whisper.

He needed to assure her that he didn't hate her for what she did.

The ANBU's eyes narrowed. "You know you're being watched so you took advantage of it." Kakashi sighed, a hand over a crimson eye. "You made a huge gamble, do you know that? Be as it may, you're one lucky girl." The mismatched eyes curved. "Mission accomplished."

He needed to tell her that his feelings hadn't changed.

Naruto nodded with a small smile. And then she turned to the frozen figure standing a distance before her, finally acknowledging him with uncertainty in her eyes. She took a step, and another, and another, stopping a few steps before him. Her head was tilted up, bravely facing him. Her hands were clenching and unclenching on her side.

_I love you._

From the window behind her, Sasuke could see hints of gold and pink breaking the purple-gray skies. Light snuck in from its yawning wide cracks, tumbling on her hair to dance with each strand. Wind, cool and crisp, blew the red ribbons on her hair, each lace slapping her cheeks, a ripple of silk against skin. Jasmines enticed his senses, faint yet strong against copper, overwhelming him with memories and the welcome scent of home. The silence between them, heavy, was broken by the chorus of larks.

A new day was coming and the sun was beginning to rise… and he felt—he felt—

_I love you so much._

He felt so _happy_.

"Naruto," he choked out—in joy, in relief, in emotions catching in his throat. They could watch it, finally. Could watch it, together. The approaching dawn beside him, the perfect end to the longest night of his life.

It was the perfect beginning.

"Sasuke," she said, her voice soft, her eyes looking into his. They glistened so brightly, her misty eyes, glowing with blue drops of dew against the melted cracks of ice. She was so strong, so beautiful, and he was falling all over again.

"You're not s'posed to be here."

Sasuke released a shuddering breath as his feet finally moved. She seemed so far and he couldn't wait to reach her. He couldn't wait to take her hand and pull her outside, to see the sun breaking through the skies. To pull her to his chest and see the sun rise in her eyes.

For now, nothing else mattered. She was alive and he was happy and the sun was rising. And snow, light and gentle, was falling from the skies once again.

"You're an idiot," he replied, dark eyes shining, drops of rain against the sun. He swallowed, pausing a beat to capture a semblance of control. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask. But today was their day and they had tomorrow for painful questions and answers. And they had—if he worked hard enough—the rest of their lives to forgive and forget. Even if it seemed impossible, forgetting. Nothing was impossible today and today they would celebrate the promises of future.

His lips lifted at the side, the beginnings of a smile that he couldn't stop from forming. He wanted to laugh. He did. "I'm sup—"

She suddenly jerked forward.

"—Dobe?"

Her eyes were wide circles of surprised electric blue. Naruto slowly looked down, her eyes sliding lower, stopping at her chest to regard it with silent wonder. She raised a steady hand and touched the red blooming near her heart. Liquid red, thick and warm. Hypnotizing.

_"You're the only one I'd give a chance."_

"... Ka... Kashi?"

_"... come after me, yeah?"_

"Sorry, Kyuubi," Hatake Kakashi said as he lowered his weapon. Behind him, an old man in navy blue—the well-known color of Tokyo's police force—drew nearer, a lukewarm smile on his weather-beaten face. "Mission's over."

_"... catch me."_

Naruto fell, quietly, the last maple leaf floating gently to the ground.

_"Then I'd finally get to rest. Maybe even get to watch the sunset one last time."_

Vivid blue slid shut, hiding the sky from his eyes. Lips slightly parted, a daring attempt to breathe, lips that would never curve with the most beautiful of her smiles. Silky strands of yellow, a halo on her crown, liquid gold against the sunlight streaming softly past the windows.

_"We can watch it together, dumbass. Don't say stupid things."_

The sun had risen.

_"But the sunrise is better. It's... indescribable."_

"The Akatsuki is neutralized. Mission accomplished, Danzou-sama."

_"You'll have to—have to see it for yourself."_

Sasuke didn't register the screams until his throat was bleeding. Until relentless hands were forcing him away. Until there was blood on his hands, on his clothes, on his face, on his lips.

_"Maybe."_

Blood not his.

_"Until then, you'll stay. Here."_

The sunrise on her blood was mesmerizing.

_"I love you."_

The way she mesmerized him the first time he saw her by his brother's grave.

_"Thank you."_

They should have killed him too.

* * *

_And it falls, without a sound, woven dreams unfulfilled. Like hot tears, silent, from where a heart was supposed to be._


	24. Living with Illusions

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_Weave illusions with your mind and fulfill them with your hands, colorless, soundless, but infinitely kind—after everyone had gone, they are all you'll ever have, they are all you'll ever need to go through with your life._

* * *

A month after her death, Uchiha Sasuke was living.

He pulled his drawer open and took his black tie, handling it with a care befitting a dear child. He stood before his mirror, dark eyes unseeing, his hands automatically tying the strip of dark cloth below his collar pressed a few times before. He spent a few seconds carefully straightening the tie, more seconds patting his white dress shirt and black pants until there was not a hint of crease left. Minutes later, satisfied, he put on his navy blue uniform, leaving the top two buttons open, before doing the same meticulous process until everything was in place.

He glanced at his radio clock, noting the time—_6:25 am—_and idly recalled historical events that occurred on the 25th of June. _Custer's Last Stand_ in Little Bighorn. _Diary of Anne Frank_ was published. Invasion of South Korea by North Korea, triggering the _Korean War_. _Declaration of Independence_ by Croatia and Slovenia. Birth of Sir Eric Arthur Blair, more known as _George Orwell_, writer of _Animal Farm_ and _Nineteen Eighty-Four_. _Prince Yasuhito Chichibu_ was born. So were gravure idol _Nozomi Takeuchi_ and Jeong Ji-Hoon, the Korean idol more known as _Rain_.

A lot of important figures died that day too.

Sasuke immediately turned away. His socked feet padded on the carpet as he made his way to the exit. He opened the door, his backpack and muffler in one hand and his black overcoat draped over his arm, and closed it behind him with a quiet force. He walked through the hallway, a pale shadow with a purpose, and went down the stairs, counting in his head as he went down one step at a time.

_One._ The atomic number of _hydrogen_.

_Two._ The first _magic number_ in nuclear physics.

_Three._ An average person has three _trillion cells_.

_Fo_—

He paused for a moment. The next step was unlucky, should he step on it? It was the fourth step and its homonym wasn't exa—

_Death_.

Sasuke nodded, deciding. He'd take the step today. There's no reason not to, this time. He had no test, or project, or report, or game that needed all his luck today. He could take the risk.

_Four._ Number of forms in the _Square of Opposition_.

_Five._ _Horizontal lines_ in a musical staff.

_Si_—

**_Scars_****.**

He abruptly stopped and shook his head, a small child caught in the trap of his own lies. Dark eyes stared down at his feet as if seeing them for the first time, a pale hand unconsciously coming up to rub on the curve of his cheek. There was something—something warm—

_Six._ Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, pungent, and astringent, the tastes in _Ayurveda_.

Sasuke blinked, feeling the familiar cold touch of his hand on his face. His hand slowly dropped to his side. He took another step, still looking down. His hair brushed against his neck, tickling like the thoughts at the edges of his mind.

_Seven._ The last _suici_—

He stumbled on an unseen bump and immediately caught himself on the banister. He drew a steadying breath, briefly closing his eyes, waiting for his heart to slow down at the suddenness of what happened. Black eyes opened, contemplating the carpeted step. _Seven_ is an easy number.

_Seven._ The last _suicide_ mentioned in the Bible courtesy of _Judas Iscariot_.

Sasuke inwardly sighed. He took another step as he eyed the remaining steps. Almost there...

_Eight._ The number in the Beijing Summer Olympics opening ceremony, _8:08:08 _in the evening of _August 8, 2008._

_Nine._ The other name for the _Nazgûl_ in Tolkien's _Lord of the Rings_.

_Ten._ _Worth of points_ of the face cards in blackjack.

_Eleven._ Number of _points_ in the stylized _map_—

He caught himself on the banister once again. _Damn_, what the _hell_ was wrong with him today? He'd never had this much trouble so early in the day before!

Sasuke leaned on the steel handrail. His limbs felt weak. He closed his eyes, waiting for strength to return. A second passed, two. He stood up slowly and began straightening his uniform again. He needed something to do with his hands. Something bad might happen.

_Eleven._ Number of _points_ in the stylized _maple leaf_ on the Flag of Canada.

Only two more steps. He took the penultimate step with an almost relieved sigh. Going down the stairs had never been this hard and he was feeling a bit better that he would be reaching the ground floor soon.

_Twelve._ Number of _feet_ for a _mark twain_.

And the last step, _thirteen_. The number of steps leading up to the _gallows_.

He reached the landing, almost falling over with a sudden burst of haste, scrambling to the kitchen with a strange anxiety in his chest. Black couldn't hurt him, white wouldn't dare. Count the steps count the steps count the steps count the steps. One step two steps three steps four steps—

He gave himself a harsh shake as the nauseating feeling dissipated. There's no reason to act like this. Besides, he only had ten more minutes to eat his breakfast and prepare his lunch to get to school at a decent time. He also had to add thirty pieces of puzzles—it had been thirty days, since.

Since he concluded that routine is good.

Sasuke opened his refrigerator, grabbing the bag of onigiri and heading back to the living room. Perhaps he didn't need to eat breakfast today, he thought faintly as he took random pieces of puzzles, hoping to find a fit. The thousand-piece puzzle he had bought exactly thirty days ago was nowhere near completion but he didn't care—he much preferred the incompletion. With how he kept forcing pieces where they clearly didn't fit, he knew this puzzle would remain incomplete for a long, long time.

Everything felt like a long time. And yet, sometimes everything would sneak up on him and they would be fresh and raw and vivid all over again.

..._ twenty-eight pieces, twenty-nine pieces, thirty pieces._

Exactly ten minutes later and he was heading outside, his overcoat over his uniform, a pair of gloves protecting his hands, and his muffler around his neck. Sasuke liked it, his muffler—it was a simple maroon, knitted by his own hands the uneventful summer of his seventeenth birthday. He had felt a surge of pride with his handiwork, along with a blast of _coolness_ at his color choice—it was the nearest to red that he owned and though he wouldn't speak of it aloud, he thought it looked good on him.

_"Maroon? Hn."_

His brother seemed to agree, too.

Sasuke opened the door and immediately, golden warmth touched his cheeks.

He blinked, slowly, as if waking up for the first time after a century of slumber, the haze of sleep and dreams falling from his eyes to reveal the world as it had become. It sent a sharp jolt to his nerves, this warmth, light—he had become so used to the gray cold that he hardly felt the biting chill when he rode his bicycle to school, with the wind becoming so cutting and cold it wasn't unusual to see most of the townspeople wearing colorful ski masks. Sasuke went about wearing ski shades, however, numb to the gray fingers of frost and the harsh sting of ice, lost in his recitation of etymologies and vocabularies and endless streams of trivia, of where else he could place those pieces of puzzles in defiance of the inevitable, of how much longer he needed to perfect his aim. The coldness had long seeped inside him that he hardly felt it anymore, and it was a physical shock, this golden warmth—it brought muted visions of a time long gone, when everything seemed golden and warm despite the absolute black of night.

He stood, motionless, bathed under the yellow sun—its light rolled over endless white revealing the first hints of colors of a sleepy town wrapped in winter, their roofs the bright heads of children coming out from under the wrappings of their thick woolen blankets to enjoy a dry and crisp morning. Each house was dotted with hints of the holidays, their designs a ribbon of red streaking through winding snow. Some branches of bare trees had silver ribbons tied around them, giving the tree a festive look, while some residents had decorated their leafless trees with colorful lights blinking to the tune of yuletide songs.

But it was smoke, however, from the house nearest his, that woke Sasuke from his stupor. There was a surreal quality to the gray smoke drifting out of its chimney, curling to the skies before vanishing within the threads of rolling white clouds—he could see it so much he could _taste_ it, that lingering, bittersweet loneliness from having to leave a home behind, and he felt his body begin to shake as he tasted it again and again and again.

As his mind began to taunt him with the scent of home, Sasuke hooked a leg over his bicycle and took off.

By his estimation, he would be thirty minutes late to school. It didn't matter, however—the holiday vacation had begun two weeks ago.

No one would be around to care.

He sat in the waiting shed and took another bite of onigiri.

It was lunchtime and Sasuke had immediately stopped doing crosswords—it wouldn't do well to miss lunch, not after he had missed breakfast and remembered to pack it earlier this morning. As he took another bite—what did it taste like, onigiri? did he even know its flavor to begin with?—his eyes landed once more upon the steel gates of his school.

He was in no mood to break in this morning so he decided to spend the morning in the waiting shed outside of the school—besides, the principal had threatened to remove him from the list of graduating students if he did it again, after a school custodian caught him in the baseball field lying on the snow. Sasuke hadn't been doing anything, just staring at a pine tree brought from overseas and estimating its number of needles, but the custodian had freaked out and immediately ordered him to leave the premises or he'd have him arrested. Sasuke coolly informed him that he didn't give a damn, returning to his estimating game in dismissal, only to have the school principal bearing down on him with clear displeasure on her beautiful face.

It turned out that the school staff, from the principal to the lowliest of sanitation agents, were having a Christmas party—the principal herself brought him to her office and demanded why he broke and entered inside the school. Sasuke sat silently throughout the interrogation, answering only when he could give a straight answer, when he was sure he didn't have to see the glint of gold from the dim sun behind her window flashing on her hair. Through this tedious process, she learned that Uchiha Sasuke had been breaking and entering since the start of the holiday vacation, that he arrived during the beginning of class hours and left during dismissal, and that he never took or left anything behind. He didn't answer _why_ he was doing this and she ordered him not to do it again, along with the threat that she'd hold him back if he were caught for the second time.

The next day, he scaled the school walls and ate his Christmas lunch of tomato salad and green tea on the rooftop. He thought he saw her from the window of the administration building, a lonely silhouette threaded through the shadow, but he was probably seeing things.

He instinctively glanced at his watch, noting with satisfaction that it was the start of afternoon classes. He carefully placed the empty bag of onigiri inside his backpack and stood up, heading to the forest on the west side of the school. His feet led him to his favored tree without thought and he climbed up—it was easy, now, climbing a tree, and he could do it as thoughtlessly as he could tie the laces of his sneakers—settling on the highest branch to observe the view of lower Konoha.

Konoha was the epitome of life, that afternoon. Children ran about in excited abandon, their mouths yelling words he couldn't hear from where he sat. Some threw snowballs at each other, and some ran around their mothers doing last-minute shopping for the arrival of the new year. The rest knocked on random houses and sang, or at least that's what he thought they were doing, because a few of these kids carried homemade musical instruments—a strange custom he had observed—their efforts rewarded with a bag of round fruits. Any round fruit would suffice, though the most favored, Sasuke immediately learned, were small, shiny red apples tied by a loop of gold ribbon. It received the most wide-toothed grin and the best-made snowmen and, he believed, the most careful of touches from innocent creatures naturally reckless and free.

How had it been, when he was a child? Had he been like those little men and women who acted as if they were born only to laugh?

As he sat upon the snow-laced branch, caught in a patch of sun caressing his cheeks, Sasuke couldn't remember. Perhaps it had been too long a time ago that he couldn't remember anymore. Perhaps they weren't important enough to recall and relive, even for a breath. Perhaps some memories are best kept locked under key.

Sasuke looked up to the skies and his eyes slid shut. The transient fingers of the afternoon sun traced the lines of his face, touching with a silent question that demanded, that pleaded. He understood, somewhat, but he couldn't bring himself to answer. He didn't want to consider the possibility that he had failed.

He was living. Like he had been asked to, he was moving on.

He opened his eyes. A lone snowflake floated in the air before him. It landed on his hand, white against white. Melting. Crying. Another snowflake. Another tear.

Perhaps things could have been different. Perhaps nothing would have changed. But what did it matter if he was moving on with his life?

_It's so cold._

A glance and he fired.

_Twenty-one_.

He lowered his hands to his shoulder's level, eyeing the target. Another bull's eye. Soon, he thought, soon all twenty-one bullets would hit dead center, and then he'd move to shooting moving objects. For now, he contented himself with hitting the target he tacked on the resting maple tree near his brother's grave.

His hands weren't shaking anymore. He could now hold a gun with a steady grip, before and after firing a shot, and he had gotten used to the clap of thunder from a bullet cracking in the air. His accuracy was improving and his speed was getting there too. All in all, he was satisfied with his progress.

Replacing his gun in the pocket of his overcoat, Sasuke sat down beside the white marble bearing his brother's name. He idly traced the first line of dates, his other hand tugging on the handful of grasses breaking through the snow. It was only a matter of time now.

"The sun's setting, Nii-san," he said softly.

Against the burnished gold of the dying sun, the snow-kissed world became a landscape of sand, bronze and sparkling with dustings of silver-white. Dark shadows interlaced with the dusk winter sands, weaving a tapestry of solitude, desolate and beautiful.

Opaque dark eyes took it all in. The tableau was nothing short of enchantment. His brother would have approved with a slight tilt on his lips, the closest to a grin that Itachi would give.

"It's a nice sunset."

Sasuke couldn't feel a thing.

He stood up and patted himself down. Snow and grass. White and green. No trace of red unless forced by humanity. It's time to go.

He turned around, ready to leave. He froze.

It was snowing.

_One drop. Two drops. Three drops. Four drops_—

Sasuke was exhausted.

He sat on the floor, the couch, his tub, his bed—Sasuke didn't really care, location was irrelevant—his dull eyes watching dust trace stories through the light of the moon stealing its way inside his house. He was curled upon himself, stretched out, on his back, on his stomach—it didn't matter, shadows didn't care—tired from staying awake, from sleeping and waking up so suddenly, so quickly, tired from living, from moving on, from dying.

The night, once a friend, never offered him reprieve.

He was filthy and he didn't care. Nothing mattered—not the rotting food in his fridge, not the pile of dirty laundry in his hamper, not the illusion of normality, not the temptation of insanity. Nothing mattered except he was falling down, falling down again and breaking into more and more pieces.

He wondered faintly how dehydrated he already was. Could someone complete a puzzle so dry its pieces would crumble into dusts? Would he die if all his waters dry up?

Was he still even alive to wonder about it? He was living, his mind said so, his convictions told him so, but a void inside him, nebulous, suffocating with its heavy numbness, said otherwise. For how could he be alive when everyone else was dead?

What did it matter, anyway? All he had ever loved had killed him in their death—maybe this was finally his.

"Itachi is dead," Sasuke said. Just to test it out. To see if he would finally, really, truly honestly believe it, the first time he spoke of it out aloud to acknowledge its power.

He did.

"Na—Naruto—"

He stopped, unable to go on. His eyes were itching once more, sprinkles of ash under their lids, and he couldn't go on. He wasn't ready for that yet.

Perhaps, he never will be.

"I love you," he said instead. It was truth and he believed it. Even the night did, its shadows receding into the corners of his room, the corners once blessed with her golden presence. "It's not just the sex," he continued, his tongue loose. It didn't matter. He would trade all his truth for a lie of her smile. "It's not just your attention. It's so much—so much more that I don't even understand.

"I love you—" Sasuke's breath hitched, tears finally falling down in unrestrained grief. He was lying on the carpet, a broken figure in porcelain, catching the silver moonshine on his brows and the stars that once tangled in her hair, "—because your hair reminds me of the sun... because the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and the distance between the two is great but it doesn't matter at all.

"I love you… because your eyes are broken, because they're so beautiful, and blue, and they say so much—and they changed my world when you looked at me, the first time, and I'll never forget how I—how I felt, seeing myself. I want t-to be in your eyes, always, and I sound like a lovesick idiot but I c-can't help it—" he gave a choked laugh, "I guess your idiot's catching...

"I love you... because you like orange and frogs, because you have different smiles and I always find it hard not to smile back—because your eyes shine like stars, with your secret smile, because there are millions of stars and I—I couldn't count them all, even when I tried it, last night.

"I love you because you act like a—like a kid, sometimes, because a child is born every 20 minutes... because all children grow up and forget their parents sometimes, but they always remember when all they can do is cry... I love you because—because you like milk and I like green tea, because it's nice, sitting on the couch watching a lame movie with you, even when you're sleepy, because you stayed awake to—to watch, with me—because you babble like an idiot when you're excited, and you're nervous, and it's your smile that tells me the difference, and I thought it's—it's okay, that lame movie.

"I love you because I hate Calculus but I like Algebra, because you thought Trigonometry is a terminal sickness, because you told me Chemistry is for dorks with too much money and time in their hands, and I defended the subject even when I—when I secretly agreed w-with you—

"I love you, because I have 206 bones in my body, because the skin protecting them misses yours, because I have p-platelets and-and-and erythrocytes a-and leukocytes and they circulate around my body, because I have a p-pair of lungs and when I breathe, I smell—I smell jasmines and I—and I inhale y-y-your smile—

"I love you... because my name is Sasuke and it sounds so—so _perfect_, when you said it—

"I love you because you're N-N-Naruto, and it's a specific name for _idiot_, and _moron_, and _dumbass_, and _loser_, and I can't believe gravity betrayed me, like they said it did with that—that damned apple, and made me fall for a complete do-_dobe_ and-and _usuratonkachi_—

"I love you, because I saw you in the cemetery, on the tree, on my wall, on the bed, and I decided you'd be a permanent fixture in my house, in my life—because I don't buy that bullshit _forever_ but now I can't—can't _say_ it without thinking of you—

"I... I love you because damn you, y-you fucking idiot, I'm talking to no one and I wish—I wish you're hearing me, right now—and I love you, I love you so much, and I really...I really don't know why..."

Sasuke was exhausted.

He curled to his side under the wash of moonshine, his heart dying in his throat, his mind playing visions behind the darkness of his eyes. Minutes, hours, years later and finally, as the moon began to hide behind the comfort of its clouds, he fell into oblivion.

He woke up, an eternity later, to the scent of jasmines floating in his room. His hand sought the warmth on his side and his eyes fluttered open, a drowsy smile curving on his lips.

Liquid gold. Melting blue. Copper wrapped in orange and black.

Ribbons of scarlet winding around the sun.

"Naruto?"

It was all he could say, her name, in the face of the smile lighting up her eyes.

"Did you mean it?" she asked, breathless. Snow dappled her hair, her eyelashes, her cheeks, her face flushed from the outside chill. She radiated light and warmth and Sasuke reached up, his arms winding around her, his fingers tangling through her hair, his eyes catching hers. His sight was blurring again and he had to hold her, claim her, before she completely faded against the treachery of his tears.

"Every word," he murmured, his lips on her neck. He breathed deeply. Jasmines. Her.

It was really her.

His throat was closing up. Emotions were choking him. In a world devoid of air, she was the only air he needed.

He breathed. He forced his words out.

"I love you, you fucking moron. Even with all those lies."

Silence answered his words. He didn't expect her to speak. She spoke enough with the brilliance in her eyes.

A sigh.

"So that's why."

Sasuke's eyes shot open.

Leaning on the wall beside his window, an orange pocketbook in one hand covering his face, was one Hatake Kakashi.

* * *

_Live them out, everyday, in the safe haven of your mind—without illusions you exist, without illusions you die._


	25. Watching the Sunrise with Farseeing Eyes

**Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn**

_by __Hic Iacet Mori_

* * *

_The yellow sun rises, its flaming arms breaking through the infinite night skies. It spreads light where it touches, spreads warmth where it passes—it stretches above, a golden cat, warm and bright, cheery as it waits for you to rise and smile up your sky._

* * *

Sasuke raised his gun and fired.

"You seem happy to see me," Kakashi commented mildly, glancing at the wall he stood before a second ago—there was now an aperture on the wallpaper, the perfect size for the bullet lodged inside. Kakashi lowered his orange book long enough to give it a lazy, appraising stare, assuming the air of an art critic. "I assume you've been busy?" he asked, voice polite, before turning to the young Uchiha sitting on the bed, mismatched eyes amiable.

Sasuke replied with another shot.

The intruder made a clucking sound, waving a hand wrapped in fingerless black glove. "Maa, maa, don't waste bullets. Inheritance doesn't last forever."

Sasuke slowly swung his legs down his bed, his aim unwavering. He blinked rapidly—dry eyes were a disadvantage when he needed to see for as much as he could, wrapped in this darkness threatening to devour him, body and soul—long strands of black hair gleaming blue against the moon falling down to hide this motion, glossy raven's wings hiding his eyes from clear sight. Silk blue sheets slid down from his body, a serpent shedding its skin, and his feet landed lightly on the dark blue carpet. He was only in his boxers but it was inconsequential, his half-naked state—he didn't need to dress up to nail a bullet between this bastard's revolting eyes, to watch life leak out drop by every drop of blood by the whim of his hands. Something in his mind snickered that his boxers, black silk, were appropriate enough. This man didn't deserve the purity of white.

Hatake Kakashi straightened up, looking at his pocketbook longingly before closing it and swiping it down his back pocket. His head casually tilted to the left as another bullet sliced the air, his action seemingly coincidental, as if he had remembered a thought and he was merely leaning back to see it a bit clearer. Kakashi then looked at the stone-faced young man—near inhuman, this figure, sculpted of white marble and black vengeance, looking back at him with cold eyes, dark and dead.

Black eyes condemned the ANBU, bottomless pools of poison, their darkness more powerful than any words Sasuke could utter. He didn't trust himself to open his mouth—he would begin yelling and screaming, raging against the heavens, against the Fates, against humanity, against life, and he didn't think Hatake Kakashi deserved the acknowledgment of his words. No one, least of all this bastard standing so infuriatingly inside his room, deserved it.

His reasons to speak weren't with him anymore.

Without thought, Sasuke pulled the trigger again. The silencer on the barrel minimized the sound of the gunpowder igniting behind the bullet, and the sound of the shell casing ejected by his pistol was dulled by the carpet.

Kakashi took an almost languid step to the right, silver hovering in empty air before fluttering back to the shadows. Sasuke watched him place his hands inside his pockets, his shoulders slouching, as if Hatake Kakashi could protect himself with just his body. Throughout these actions, the damned eyes wouldn't leave his face.

The bastard was mocking him.

"You just have two rounds left," Kakashi pointed out, having immediately ascertained the limits of the silver semi-automatic. Sasuke's hold never wavered, though for the first time since this man he despised made his presence known inside his room, he finally reacted with a keen narrowing of his eyes, forming into an intense glower conveying the loathing that made up the red of his blood, the white of his bones, the black of his rage.

The ANBU took a step forward. Sasuke followed the movement with a rapid fire from his gun.

"Sasuke!"

His glare intensified, slits of glowing crimson against a face white with wrath, utterly white against the gray shadows, the blue silk, the black strands, the red fury. His nakedness did nothing to detract from his fearsome appearance—he was a canvas of lurid streaks, of red blood and silver tears, of black hatred and white grief, wild edges of violence contained in a solid frame of tight control. Crafted of fine glass, thick and dark, ready to shatter—at the wind's whim—into millions of fragments for the least chance to cut a finger, the slightest chance to blind an eye.

He desired to do so much more.

Uchiha Sasuke, with the frozen expression of the dead despising his murderer to the last, was a blazing sight of an avenger returned from his grave.

Kakashi's eyes had an odd haze as he sighed, as if he had to focus within himself, or on a distance far beyond, to stand in the presence of someone so radiant with fierce emotions it was wrong, so utterly _wrong_ to behold it, to see it come alive and _breathe_, to feel it thread around the very air between them and _live_. The ANBU raised a gloved hand to his spiky silver hair, ruffling it with a strangely frustrated expression on his face—suddenly human, suddenly tired, suddenly appearing older beyond his time.

Sasuke refused to be distracted. This bastard... This bastard was the man behind _everything_.

Hatake Kakashi was Japan's latest hero in crime-fighting and justice, his face appearing regularly in the news to the rhythm of adulation from both news anchors and phone-in viewers. He was credited for the fall of the unknown organization of subversives blamed for the series of political assassinations and acts of terrorism for the past three years, defeating the criminals—too_ tame_, a well-respected reporter had screeched on prime time, calling such men _criminals—_after a top-secret, high-stakes three-year operation that ended in a spectacular shootout, already touted to go down in history as one of the most daring tales of justice prevailing ever known in the country, ridding Japan of all the members of the organization named _Akatsuki _for good.

It was an odd name for a criminal organization, Akatsuki, that reporters immediately fell upon each other trying to unearth the real reason behind such a name.

Less than a week later, the newly-promoted captain Hatake Kakashi held a media conference, exposing Danzou's connection to the Akatsuki along with the true nature of the secret branch of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department _Ne_. Coming from Japan's newest hero, the public was outraged and the Prime Minister himself immediately ordered an investigation. Barely a day later, damning evidences found its way on the desk of Japan's Minister of Defense.

It was only the beginning.

Both the Superintendent and the Senior Superintendent were implicated for permitting the existence of Ne, the purpose of which was to accumulate and sell military and political secrets to the highest bidder, the highest bidder turning out to be Akatsuki. Along with the evidences, this became the catalyst that triggered a series of shocking events to scandalize the entire nation, ending with half of the governments posts forcibly vacated on suspicion of collaboration and treason.

The immediate relief of all 50,000 police officers of TMPD was ordered, all except for one. Hatake Kakashi was promoted to Senior Superintendent after _Utatane Koharu_, Superintendent, _Mitokado Homura_, Senior Superintendent, and _Shimura Danzou_, Captain, were found guilty of conspiracy, treason, inciting to sedition, various felonies, and a string of countless murders, the most prominent being the murder of the world-renowned journalist Namikaze Minato. Danzou, who after an exhaustive investigation was revealed to be an expelled member of the Uchiha Ichizoku for reasons unknown, disappeared and was found three days later in his rest house. Reports showed that he committed _sepukku _and, a day later, both Utatane and Mitokado followed suit.

He waited, and waited. There were no news on Uzumaki Naruto or the Jinchuuriki—it was as if they never existed, as if she never lived, as if no one would care whether they were real or not. It had taken three long weeks—three very long, very slow weeks—of waiting, of controlling himself, before he gave in and punched his television in fury after seeing the face of the bastard who deceived her, deceived his brother, deceived _him_, for the nth time—in this sordid, convoluted affair that continued to play out in his mind, only the motherfucking bastard emerged the winner.

Not only was Hatake Kakashi alive, he had a fucking shiny rank to boot.

And Sasuke understood. The sick fuck planned _everything_ for power. Now that he had relative control over the entire Tokyo police force, Sasuke knew Kakashi was just beginning.

Did ANBU even exist at all, or was it a lie created to fool them all?

"Sasuke..." Kakashi sighed. His eyes were somber, vortices of inexplicable liquid emotions, rising and ebbing upon themselves in shadows of blood and smoke. It was disgusting. "Is this because of Naruto?" he asked, so softly, so lowly, so kindly, Sasuke couldn't believe this was the same man who had drastically changed his world not once, but _twice_—first with the sound of his voice, and second with the sound of his bullet.

Just what kind of demon was he facing?

"Don't speak of her name," Sasuke said, equally softly, equally lowly, equally kindly. A fine tremor ran through his body, gone in the same breath yet there, staying, just below his skin, biding its time until it can come out, claws out, fangs out, released to tear into shreds until everything was no more.

Kakashi moved forward and he was prepared, stopping the older man with the barrel of his pistol to the forehead. But the other was prepared as well, crouching down abruptly when Sasuke fired his last bullet, left arm rising up to grab the pale wrist and pinning it to the wall, squeezing at the veins on his wrist to make him release the gun.

Sasuke may often use his right hand but he was a southpaw—using his free left hand, he delivered a punch across the man's face, sneering in satisfaction when it connected to a covered nose and a sickening _crack_ echoed in the room. It was short-lived, however, when Kakashi simply raised his own free hand to fix his nose back into place, as if it was a daily ritual he was in a hurry to finish.

Before Sasuke could do anything else, he was pulled forward all of a sudden and roughly pushed down to his bed. He immediately rolled over and sat up, ready to launch a flurry of offense. He looked up and sucked in a surprised breath.

Hatake Kakashi stood before him, a plushie in his hand.

"So this is where she got it from," he murmured, a long finger tracing a line on the dear object. With a deep growl, Sasuke sprang up to snatch it from Kakashi's hand. He stiffened when Kakashi leaned down and placed it on his palm, gently.

"Look underneath the underneath, Sasuke," Kakashi said. Those words, the exact words Hatake Kakashi had said before, jarred him terribly and brought him back to that moment when he first sensed that something was _off_.

He jolted at a light touch on his bare shoulder. The rough velcro burned against his skin.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said. The man said it with such awkwardness and uncertainty—as if it was an alien concept, apologizing, and he had just learned it and decided to do it even when he wasn't sure when it must be used. It rang with sincerity, however, and it was this that roused Sasuke from his bewilderment.

Another crack echoed in the room. Sasuke was panting, heaving with righteous fury—there are actions that could never be redeemed by mere words dreamed of in existence, there are actions that could never be absolved by mere strings of letters and mere exposures of feelings. What Hataki Kakashi had done was too despicable to forgive. Too brutal, barbaric.

"You would make a fine ANBU."

The suddenness of the enigmatic statement brought Sasuke to oblivion.

* * *

It took seconds for him to realize his eyes were wide open.

His ceiling was an eerie white, he realized. Quite creepy, from where he lay watching it glow in the night, as if there was something hovering over there that shouldn't be there at all. It also seemed to form some—words, or images— gray and red, silver and black—and _sorry_, _sorry, sorry_.

He wondered drowsily how he got in bed.

_"Sasuke!"_

His eyes, sliding close against the silky whispers of his bed, quickly flew open.

_"Did you mean it?"_

Sasuke sprang upright, dark eyes darting around, assessing as much of his room as he could in flashes of seconds. Were they all just dreams? Kakashi's presence in his room, Naruto's smile by his side? He dropped his hands to the bed, bracing himself to stand, when his left hand landed on something that felt different from the silk smoothness he was unconsciously expecting.

His mouth opened in a soundless gasp.

_"So this is where she got it from."_

He lifted it to his eyes, awestruck.

_"Did you make this yourself, Otouto?"_

Itachi's plushie.

_"I will treasure it always."_

"That bastard... was here..." he whispered to himself, disbelieving. Sasuke could feel fury, smoldering, beginning to come alive under his skin. An image surfaced in his mind, of Hatake Kakashi standing before him, touching the very same plushie he was now holding, a long finger tra—

_"So this is where she got it from."_

Sasuke's brows furrowed. What did that mean?

He immediately decided that the bastard was playing his mental game once more, only to pause when his finger tangled into the lighter-colored thread that his brother once used to mend a tear. As he untied his finger without thought, he poked something.

_A... paper?_

His heart beating with an odd anticipation, he gently spread the stomach of the plushie wider until he caught, and removed, a folded white paper wedged among the cotton. Sasuke took a deep breath and blinked a number of times, forcing his sight to clear, told himself not to damn expect _anything_, and unfolded it.

His scratchy eyes rounded painfully in shock.

In the uneven squiggles of symbols floating on a paper, Sasuke saw his Naruto.

_Teme. How the fuck are you gonna catch me if you're playing hooky in life? Damn it, get your pansy ass cracking and start moving already! You have a fox to catch!_

He rubbed his eyes with a shaking fist, shivering as he reread the letter. He wasn't imagining this, was he? This wasn't an illusion, was it?

Sasuke pinched himself. He winced slightly but he wasn't sure, he was a realistic dreamer sometimes. He stared down at the paper, his mind frustratingly blank, and stood up. He crossed his room and stopped before his work table. His brain wasn't registering anything. He needed to do... do something.

He closed his eyes and slammed his head on the table.

_Shit_. That _definitely_ hurt.

Sasuke slowly opened his eyes, his hands shaking. He looked down in trepidation.

The paper was still there. It was still white, crumpled, full of words, _her _words.

_Her words..._

His heart stopped.

Sasuke reread the letter for the third time. His hand wouldn't stop shaking. Something inside him was shifting, something strong, something big. He couldn't control his mouth, they were twitching too much. His throat was dry. His eyes wet. He felt unreal.

His mouth was opening, what would he do? Would he yell? Cry? Laugh? What?

"She's alive," he breathed.

And suddenly, Uchiha Sasuke was alive, too.

He glanced at the lightening skies. Without another thought, he darted to his closet, grabbing clothes, any clothes, and putting them on with anxious speed, his high-strung nerves causing him to fumble a couple of times and curse like it was his native language. It was taking him too long and it was frustrating, and it was exciting, and it was a Christmas morning except it was the New Year beginning and it was better and why wouldn't the damned buttons go inside the damned holes? What the hell was wrong with his fingers and why couldn't he stop laughing, laughing, laughing?

Sasuke ran to the door as dragged on his sweatpants. He opened the door and slammed it shut, anxious to leave.

A gilt-colored casing rolled around the blue carpet.

* * *

"_Naruto!_"

Against the light purple skies of an approaching sunrise, Uzumaki Naruto froze, a splash of yellow-gold waves on a beach of black-orange sands. Sasuke stopped, his hands on his knees, panting hard as he struggled to get as much air in his lungs as he could, to get in as much of her as he could see. His eyes stung so much. From the cold wind, from the hot ache, from the sight of her, so beautiful and real, so gorgeous and alive.

It was threatening, again. The urge to laugh.

_You're really alive..._

"I'm going to fucking _kill_ you, **_Kakashi!_**" she yelled, her face to the skies, her fist shaking against it. Sasuke slowly straightened up, wondering at this strange pronouncement, the laughter falling away from his mouth, understanding at the same time that he didn't want to. It caused his heart to clench.

"Naruto."

A long silent moment, as if there was no one else but him. And then, she sighed. It evoked a response in him as he found himself walking towards her, his gaze unwavering. Sasuke didn't dare blink. She might disappear, melt into the pockets of shadow that never disappeared in this land.

Because if she did—he wouldn't know what to do anymore.

"Sasuke," she said, sighing once again. He jerked to a stop at his name. He wanted to hear her say it again. His name, always, wrapped warmly in her voice, breathed to life by her lips. Spoken because she was alive.

Like he was.

"You're not 'sposed to be here."

And the euphoria of finding her, alive, standing in front of him right now with her back against him, like the first time they met right here, in this still-darkened cemetery, crashed down upon him like heaps of white snow from a brown rotten twig.

_"You're not 'sposed to be here."_

Those words again, the words she had last uttered to him before she died before his eyes.

And suddenly the blackness gnawing at his soul, eating inside him until he couldn't sleep, couldn't close his eyes and not see it, what happened next between those moments she said those words and he tried to reach her, overwhelmed him so much he staggered forward, a pain roiling in his heart, horrible, punishing, until he almost fell down to his knees.

"I didn't catch you," he spoke past the tightness in his throat, his voice rough, uneven, raw with acid guilt, bitter regret. "I didn't catch you like you asked me to."

"Teme—"

"I didn't catch you," he repeated, eyes wide and black, watching her fall once again, the orange ball of sun fading quietly into the night. It was what hurt him the most, on top of all the pain and grief—he didn't catch her. He had stood, shocked, had watched, bewildered, as she tumbled to the ground, so quiet, so light. Dead. It haunted him, each night. He never caught her.

"Dobe..."

Sasuke took a step, a hesitant step, a fearful step closer to her. What if she disappeared? What if she hated him? What if this really was just his desperate mind playing on his weakness, what if he was finally insane? What if this was the last time he could see her, real or imagined?

What if he didn't catch her again?

Something was breaking within him. He whispered. It was all he could manage.

"I didn't catch you..."

"You—" His head shot up to see her clench her fists, her whole body stiff. She seemed to be breathing hard, as if speaking to him was taking a toll on her body. He swallowed. She exhaled. He braced himself.

"You're not fucking _serious_, are you?"

He flinched. Hurt anger rose within him. Sasuke opened his mouth but she wasn't done.

"What part of _you're not s'posed to be here_ didn't you get, huh?" she asked, her voice rising. "Are you just plain _stupid? _I wasn't talking about _the last time_ when I told you to _catch_ me, you damned asshole! You—" she took a deep breath before continuing and he unconsciously did the same, "—fucking _bastard_ almost ruined _everything!_"

She was now trembling and he began to close the remaining distance between them, worry for her overriding the response her words triggered in him. The fact that she shouldn't even be alive nibbled at the edges of his mind dozens of times, his consciousness concluding that she shouldn't be outside in this cold winter almost-morning lurking in a cemetery. She's shaking, now, and he was unbuttoning his overcoat to wrap it around her when her words, low and clear, dark and unfamiliar, carried over to him.

"Not another step, yarou."

He paused. Red-hot vicegrip was squeezing his heart. Sasuke closed his eyes. Released a shuddering breath. Opened his eyes once more, narrowing, showing to no one the pain under the frustration.

"How?" she asked. Demanded.

Sasuke placed his hands in his pockets. He was beginning to get honestly angry. The need to clobber the idiot for that tone was making his fingers itch. Couldn't she at least pretend to be happy that he was there?

_Dammit, dobe_—

"The plushie," he replied evenly. "There was—a faint scent of flowers. Jasmines."

There was silence, strange and cold, for a fraction of a moment. And then he heard it.

Naruto was _laughing_.

It was strange, that laugh. Thin, breathless, rich in secrets, heavy, heavy, heavy. White clouds full of water. Full of stories from shadowed lands.

"The first time," she said, after a very short moment, a moment to herald what Sasuke would come to remember for a long long time, "me and Itachi met, was after a mission." He tensed, unsure if he wanted to hear this, if he could stop her from continuing—but he was sure, though, that she needed to say this, to speak of his brother even in this way. "We kinda stared at each other for some time, I was annoyed because I'm dirty, there's blood on my hair, my hands, I wanted to take a bath but he's blocking my way and he's not moving and I'm not in the mood to hurt anyone 'coz I just want to soak in a tub, y'know? Then he was suddenly in my face and I was taking out my gun and he said—"

_"You smell_—_like a flower."_

She laughed again, that laughter that hurt to hear. "My mouth's like, hanging open and I think I dropped my gun, I don't remember. None of us was paying attention. I was shocked 'coz no one got near enough to actually _smell_ me, and then I was pissed that this jackass blocking me was _sniffing_ me. I went—"

_"Are you fucking** twelve**?"_

"What is it with you Uchiha, huh?" Naruto asked, voice shaky with her odd laugh. "You got a thing for smelling flowers or something? What's it, anyway, some lame pick-up line to make girls fall all over you? 'Coz I think it's beginning to work, even if it's so damned creepy and dog-like."

His heart skipped a beat.

"And what is it with you Uchiha, really?" she continued. Any trace of humor was gone. "Do you have any fucking_ idea_ how you screwed my head with a motherfucking load of worry when I saw you in the warehouse, you asshat?" she asked calmly. "You're not supposed to be there but you just have to butt in everything, huh? And what's the shit about being all fucking worried about me?"

Her voice was beginning to rise once again. "You, _you stupid **bastard**_, are supposed to feel all sunshine and shit that I'm getting my ass handed over. You_ fucking** jerk**_ are supposed to cackle evilly or go _ku-ku-ku_ or _fu-fu-fu_ or what-fucking-ever cackle you have that your brother's **_murderer_** is in the middle of her murdering acquaintances about to get a taste of her own shitty medicine. You are_ not_ supposed to be afraid for _me_, or mad at _them_, or—or damned **_happy_** that I came out of them alive, and you're not supposed to fucking _waste away like **shit** in a fucking **sewer** because you saw me get shot and **die**, you damned annoying impossible fucking **bastard!**_"

Stunned, Sasuke stuttered, "I—I—"

"Just what the fucking hell is _wrong_ with **_you?_**" Naruto screamed. "You're not supposed to make me want to **_live_**and you're not supposed to want to **_die!_**"

_Want to_—_Want to live?_

"Hadn't anything I said got into that little space between your ears? _I murdered **Itachi!**_ So what the hell is up with _you_ withering away like some dead cockroach because I was _dead__?_"

"I fucking _love_ you, _okay?_" Sasuke yelled. This, this wasn't supposed to go this way. What the hell happened? How did he get from being dazed with indescribable joy to being furious with this girl he loved who apparently wasn't dead even after she practically confessed he made her want to live again?

"It's _not_ okay!" she shouted back. She was trembling so hard, so much, and Sasuke felt his anger leaving him. He didn't understand what was happening with her but somehow, beneath her anger and frustration, he could sense she was confused and not a little—

"It's not..."

_Afraid._

And his heart answered this fear, wanting to banish it away.

"I just love you," he said sincerely, sighing. "I don't care about what's okay and not. I just do."

She sighed, again. There was so much in every little sound she made. So much that struck inside him.

"Can you even forgive me for killing him?" Naruto asked softly.

Sasuke, caught unawares, blinked in surprise. He opened his mouth to utter a strong _yes_ but nothing would come out. Frowning, he opened his mouth again. His words kept getting caught in his throat. In his mind.

"You can't even answer, ne?" she pointed out. "It's hard. You don't forgive things like that. And I don't expect you to. Hell, I can't even forgive myself."

She took a shaky breath and he could see her, once more, trembling so hard, a stubborn brown leaf against the cruel cold wind. "I see him in my dreams, in my mind. His eyes, they haunt me. His voice. Do you know what his last word was? _Love_. Through the last he was calling me _love_, the one who tortured him. Do you know how—how it fucking hurts? To see him in pain for being the stubborn ass he was, waiting for the drugs I mixed in his stupid milk to lose their effect 'coz he wanted to feel me to his last? Remembering him, that bastard—is like—like blunt nails, digging on my jugular, like there were... sharp teeth, gnawing at my vein but blood won't come out and it's stuck and it hurts because it won't stop digging, or gnawing, but my blood's stuck and it's just—it's just—it's just what I want because I can't live without my blood and its just what I deserve because I shouldn't be alive.

"I don't—I don't deserve forgiveness. Not his, not yours, not anyone's—" a choked sound, "—not even my own."

It was hard, speaking. He hadn't felt pain like this, pain from hearing the hoarse ache in someone else's words. There wasn't anything—anything he could think of to say. The pain buried deep within her was smothering in his chest.

And it hurt too, her truth. She was right—such actions, such words, they were nigh unforgivable. Nevertheless, he wanted to deny it.

"I—"

She shook her head. There was such defeat in the curve of her shoulders. Such heaviness over the burden that had always been there. "There'll always be—a part of you, that'd hate me for what I said and did, and it's not wrong to feel that way, teme. You don't have to think you're—you're less of a person or some shit like that 'coz you can't forgive."

He closed his eyes in pain. He wanted to say _yes, I forgive you, _but he couldn't lie to her or to himself. But he wanted to, so very much. He wanted to forgive her, right here, right now, so so very much.

Seeing her like this—

_Naruto..._

It hurt.

"But I will," he said quietly, his resignation breaking the silent interlude. "I can't forgive you now but I know I will. And even if you're right, that there's a part of me that hates you, I still love you and that won't change." He raised his head, urging her in silence to look at him, see his sincerity. "There's a part of you that hates him too, na? What you did," he swallowed, "wasn't something you want to do, but he asked you to do it. You can't forgive him for that, not yet. But—I know you will. In time. And I will forgive you, too, in time, and your hate, mine—they would go away too.

"And while I wait, for that time—I'll love you. And even after that."

"Teme—" He saw her raise a hand to rub on her face—or was it on her eyes? "You—You're just impossible, aren't you." She shook her head, still not turning to him, not answering his silent wish. It was killing him.

"You don't love me."

His heart twisted. "Nar—"

"No," she cut off. "You _don't_. Do you see yourself, bastard? You're so _thin._" She was looking down, at her hands, it seemed, as if it could answer the injustice of seeing him lose his weight that much. "You're not eating, you're not drinking, you're not bathing, and you're not sleeping. You're practically _killing yourself_, teme! And that's not love. That's just _need_."

"You're wrong—"

She ignored him. "I know you needed me, somewhere inside you. I'm the closest to your brother after you. You can believe he's still—_alive_, when I'm with you. For a long time you've wondered if you're really alive, and it's in me that you can be sure. You needed _someone_ to make you feel alive. Make everything around you feel _real_. Make living more _bearable_, those times you finally accepted that your brother's _dead_. When you needed another person's touch, I was there. A punch, a kick, someone to kiss or hug or shit, I was there. Someone to taunt you, someone you can insult, someone you can hang out with, talk about serious and insane mindfuckery, just finally be yourself, I was there. Everything you've needed the past months, _I was there._

"If it were someone else, you'd have felt the same way," she concluded, a touch airily. "I'm just—_someone_ who happened to be there. It's not love, what you feel. And even if it is—it's too soon, too much. It would go away, you'll see."

"You're wrong," Sasuke repeated. He knew he was supposed to feel insulted, infuriated, at how she thought less of what he felt, but he could only feel a profound sadness as the words she left unspoken resonated within him. How much had she been ruined by everything that had happened in her life? "I need you, I admit that. As disgusting as it is to say, you've become my world too, but it's only because I love you. Is it so hard to believe for a complete moron like you?"

"I didn't ask you to make me your fucking world, you fucktard!" Naruto yelled. She raised a hand, cutting off anything he might say—and he planned to say a lot too, especially for that _fucktard _comment. "You'd look back, teme, years from now and say that I'm right! You've never been—_intimate_, with anyone, and I'm there, someone you need. You're just confusing things. What you _think _you feel—it would be gone in a few."

_You're wrong._

Sasuke snorted. "You're an utter idiot. Don't take me for you."

_I'll prove it too._

Naruto's laughter rang out, loud and husky. It was her laughter, the one he loved so much. In spite of how it went, their meeting, Sasuke had a feeling that everything would be okay.

Her laughter said so.

"And you're still a bastard."

He felt his mouth tugging at the corners, his head shaking with fondness. It was odd, truly. Everything that happened between them, from the first time they met, had a surreal sense of oddity that it was as if they never happened at all, that he just yearned so much that he brought them to reality, to life. And yet everything had an odd sense of destiny, of things-meant-to-be, as if there was no way else that things could happen except the way they had, that they all happened and no amount of dreaming could make them go away.

"Idiot."

And it was odd, really, that when she was around, everything around him faded. That what was important, necessary, became unreal against the reality of her.

"Che. Who's the one not eating like some broken-hearted chick?"

And yes, there were a lot of things to thresh out but he sensed that this wasn't the time. This time, now, was for her. Not his, not theirs.

"_Broken-hearted chicks_ lather themselves with ice cream."

Everything has its season, Sasuke believed—and theirs was yet to come.

"Whatever, yarou."

He believed it.

"Hn."

She laughed. He chuckled. The brief silence that followed was calm, accepting. And then, to his left, he glimpsed a most breathtaking sight.

"Hey, Sasuke?"

The sun breaking between the mountains.

"Be a super cop, ne?"

Sasuke nodded, his eyes closing briefly, letting his silence answer for him. He had known, since he saw her, with her hair in a waterfall of gold past her shoulders to her waist, her back to the headstone where a fresh green cabbage sat tied with red laces, that she would leave—she was beginning to put her ghost to rest and she was ending what they began on a lonely night, three months ago. But if she thought he'd let her do the latter, she was sorely mistaken.

"Usuratonkachi." He waited for her to tilt her head to his. "The sun's rising."

"I know."

He drew nearer, quietly. Three more steps. "Let's watch it."

"… I don't deserve it," she murmured.

Two more steps. "Then you'll have to stay here."

A disbelieving chuckle. "Is that a threat?"

One more. "Maybe."

Sweet silence. His arms opened.

"I can feel you right behind me, teme."

Sasuke smirked. He felt wickedly good right now.

So, so good.

"Then you know what happens next, dobe."

The distance between them gone, he wrapped his arms around her and felt his chest swell with so much love, his eyes burn with so much fervor. She muttered curses under her breath—_"You're so thin, you fucking asshole"—_but Sasuke didn't care—she was leaning on him and her warm softness was real, was molding with his, and he was steering them to the east and he could feel the sun's rays touching his face, and he could feel her heart beating in time with his with the rhythm of one alive. He buried his nose on her hair and breathed deeply, taking in the crisp morning air, the wet grasses of the snowed earth, the jasmines teasing his senses, the precious life in his arms, the first dawn of the new year, the miracle of everything being right in one perfect moment that he'd never forget.

He would never forget this moment.

"Close your eyes, Sasuke."

His eyes drifted shut. In his arms, she turned. He felt her hands on his face. Her breath on his cheek. Her lips on his. Slow. Deep.

And he saw it, the sunrise. The most beautiful dawn he had ever seen, orange and yellow and pink beneath the shadows of his closed eyes. He raised his hands to touch it.

Warm, soft. Flowing in his fingers, tendrils of hot liquid. Hot and sweet, aching with a yearning so deep it hurt, a fierce sweet ache. Gentle. Fiery. Brilliant.

It was so bright he could see.

She was drawing back. He wanted to follow. She was leaving.

He stayed.

His eyes slowly opened. Blue. Yellow. Tan. The sun on the sky. The sea on the sand.

The perfect day.

"Catch me."

In the pockets of sunshine, she vanished.

Sasuke stood in the cemetery, gazing up at the winter morning sky. It was a cloudless morning, the sun ascending, gold, in a wide throne of blue. The shadows behind him. The dawn behind his eyes. Beside him the ghost of one once his world, completely at peace. Round green on his feet, threads of red around white. White dancing before black, snow falling before his eyes.

_You deserve the dawn, Naruto._

A soft smile on his face.

_And you'll watch it, someday, and our eyes will be open._

And perfect peace in his heart.

_That's a promise._

He stood in the cemetery, watching the edges of dawn remove the shadows where they had been.

Uchiha Sasuke was living.

* * *

_Watch the sun rise with farseeing eyes, and the light that you see will warm you through the coldest of nights. In the light of faith is the warmth of hope, and with love, the greatest, you will always prevail._


End file.
